To be seen to be doing nothing to stem the tide of job losses in the sector just would not do during an election year, although previous ill-considered government interventions have failed dismally.
In this, SA is not alone, which is what makes a repeat of a self-perpetuating 1930s-like spiral of trade-restricting protectionist measures increasingly likely — despite broad consensus among economists and historians that this was responsible for much of the misery of the Great Depression, and despite the lip service paid to free trade by the Group of 20 (G-20) leaders currently gathering in London.
The fact is that numerous producers of clothing and textiles worldwide have already intervened to soften the blow of the global economic crisis on their domestic industries, and it is partly as a consequence of the knock-on effect from this that SA’s government has come under pressure to follow suit.
This explains the move, but does not justify it, and nor do assurances that whatever measures are eventually implemented will comply with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The WTO has calculated that world trade will contract 8%, or by more than $1-trillion, if all members of the organisation increase their import tariffs to the maximum levels allowed.
Official support for the Buy Local campaign, long a favourite of the labour movement, is equally problematic. There is a clear logical inconsistency between a trade policy that aims to maximise exports and measures that strive to replace imports with locally produced goods without regard for quality or price. Taken to its logical conclusion, trade would dry up if every country adopted the same attitude, and the world would be immeasurably poorer for it.
