Assignment # 1

International Trade & Policy

(A trade embargo is a strategy to make another

country either do something or refrain from doing
something)

Submitted To:
Adeel Khalid

Submitted By:
Samira Malik
BBA III
Trade embargo is a government order imposing trade barrier and a trade barrier is any
regulation or policy that restrict international trade. The main reason behind imposing
trade embargo is to force that country to do favorable works of the imposing country.
Trade sanctions are mostly imposed on under developed countries by the developed
countries. This results in crucial economic crisis for that country.

These sanctions are for different purposes, sometimes it involves political games but
sometimes these sanctions are used for good purposes e.g to stop human rights violation,
or to stop a particular country doing illegal acts.

Here is the list of countries on which trade embargoes are imposed:

• North Korea (by UN, USA, EU), luxury goods (and arms), enacted 2006
• Pakistan (by UK), nuclear exports restriction, enacted 2002
• Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, (by UN), consumer goods, enacted 1975
• Cuba (by US), arms, consumer goods, money, enacted 1960
• Georgia (by Russia), agricultural products, wine, mineral water, enacted 2006
• Philippines (by Hong Kong), consumer goods, enacted 2010

The United States has used embargoes for both economic and strategic purposes. An
example of the former was the prohibition of gold bullion exports in 1933, while the
latter is seen in the embargo placed on certain war materials in 1940. An embargo may
also be used as a political device as mentioned earlier. Thus, in 1912 the president was
empowered to forbid the export of munitions to Latin America. The Neutrality Act of
1936 gave the president a similar power with regard to warring nations anywhere.

Another example of sanction, but this is in favor of sanctions. It belongs to South Africa,
in which the United Nations General Assembly imposed sanctions in 1962. The reason
was the Apartheid system which was huge violation of human rights. These sanctions
included boycotting its goods and refraining from exporting goods to South Africa.

There are many other examples of trade embargoes. And it is true that A trade embargo is
a strategy to make another country either do something or refrain from doing something.
But stopping a particular country from doing something is not always for political
purposes or games, it also have positive purposes.