Unintentional Trade Barriers

Cattle Carrying Goods

Ship Delivering Goods

One of the first barriers in the trading industry was transportation.  The lack of fast and efficient transportation methods to distribute goods and services was a great problem when exporting and importing goods.  As time passed and technology advanced ships, airplanes and cargo vehicles became available to make trading easier.

 https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=f&oq=pictures+of+old+transportation+methods&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSNO_enUS478US479&q=pictures+of+old+transportation+methods&gs_upl=0l0l4l51985lllllllllll0              

One good example of a natural disaster was the Japanese Earthquake in 2011.  Many of Japan's export deadlines were hard to keep because of lack of resources and the lack of venues to transport them as well.  The importing of goods wasn't exactly affected because their biggest imports from the United States are machinery and cereal, which are items that their need for them should increase after the earthquake.

Japanese 2011 Earthquake

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/pictures/110315-nuclear-reactor-japan-tsunami-earthquake-world-photos-meltdown/#/japan-earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-unforgettable-pictures-victim_33289_600x450.jpg

Another issue that the trading industry faces is in language, education, culture, regulations and many laws concerning trade.  Political issues can create barriers depending on each country's rules and regulations on trade and the type of goods and services that they allow to come in.  Health outbreaks, foodborne illness can become a great concern in any country importing food.  This is because these goods could be contaminated and that can quickly spread across many different nations.

September 11th was and is a great example of war on terror trade barrier. This was an event that affected the whole world because it created panic and slowed down trading globally.  Countries like the U.S. started taking extra precautions in safety to make sure that their imports and exports were delivered to their destination without anymore catastrophies.  This in turn has caused many delays in trading globally.

Investments in stocks went down dramatically and in turn many nations, as well as the economy were on hold. Many wondered what to do next and how to be prepare if anything like this  attack happened again. 

In conclusion, no country, nation or government can predict Unintentional Trade Barriers.  Everybody can prepare and have resources ready for a catastrophy but nobody can know the magnitude of it and how it will affect the recipients.

September 11th War on Terror

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://drscoundrels.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/p508.jpg&imgrefurl=http://drscoundrels.com/2010/09/10/where-was-i-my-tribute-to-911-with-pictures/&h=640&w=800&sz=153&tbnid=D-qjhuJQe_Q0yM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=121&zoom=1&usg=__9z8Fj3eG-4wA_Mrk86V-iJacfyM=&docid=fRrYcPu0Ja56cM&sa=X&ei=023uT-jbDoS30AHxgtz7Ag&ved=0CGYQ9QEwAQ&dur=4018

Reference:  Robert J. Carbaugh 13th edition
www.dailyfinance.com/2011/3/14/Japan-earthquake-u-s-economy

The Big Three U.S. Automakers

United States business are affected by Comparative Advantage and the reason is that they are spending so much on healthcare costs and labor that they are losing out on improving their product because they lack the investment capacity because of all their overspending on overhead.

They can compete if they are able as a nation to re-negotiate healthcare contracts, retiree plans including dependent children and familiy members. By putting a cap on how much and for how long a dependent can receive a retiree's pension would save many companies millions of dollars. The cap should also go as far as, not allowing the pensions to raise retiree's income every year at a high percent. This in turn will help companies achieve a good standing and also always being able to provide their employees and retirees with good benefits.

By looking at how the economy is and how the nation is doing the The Big Three have been able to achieve success after reducing overhead, excessive dealerships, plants, and employees. The have had to re-structure their companies goals, investments, and they had to re-organize their plants to make them more technologically efficient and of course to bring in new products and services to help with the rise in the fuel economy.

Toyota had an advantage because they open their plant in the US around 1986 so the amount of employees and retirees are much less than US automakers which has caused them a savings. Big Three's high wages cost disadvantage averaged $30 in wages and $30 in health care costs. While Toyota and Honda averaged $24 for both. "Japanese competitors are widely viewed as the most efficient producers of automobiles in the world." (Carbaugh, 78)

This link is to show all the changes and success that the Big Three have acquired in 2011...

http://trade.gov/mas/manufacturing/OAAI/build/groups/public/@tg_oaai/documents/webcontent/tg_oaai_003659.pdf

How open to Openness are you?

I believe if the concept is used to benefit our nation than I will back it up 100%.  The positives that I see are when competitions are high for a product this in turn reduces the prices for consumers.  There are a lot of opportunities for increased technology to be brought in at a fair cost.  Also, trading companies have the opportunity to get better goods and services from other countries. 

The negative side of it is that many services, are taken from our countries to save a few dollars and taken overseas which in turn hasn't guaranteed our consumers getting the best service.  The language barrier is a big problem when acquiring services overseas.  Openness has caused many manufacturing companies to move overseas to save in labor costs, costing many Americans to be unemployed and families to loose their homes, increasing poverty level in the U.S.

Overall, if nations could realize all the good and bad of openness and how it directly affects working families maybe some of the trading would be done differently.