In the United States, "Buy American" legislation requires that all or most goods bought by government departments and agencies be produced in that country.

In the latest GATT now known as WTO www.wto.org agreement, signatory countries are to drop this practice for contracts over $200,000, except for certain specified types of goods - such as telecommunications and electrical generating equipment.

Customs Valuation Procedures

Not all countries use the same method to assess the import duty on the value of goods imported. By using one method rather than another, an importing country can set a higher value on the goods and therefore levy a larger Ad Valorem duty.

One guilty country of such practice was Canada. Its previous Customs code allowed it to impose duty levels not directly related to the price paid for the goods but to what is termed "fair market value". This was branded by other countries, particularly the United Stated, as a non-tariff barrier and an unfair protective device.

It was defended by Canada as a necessary measure to prevent predatory export pricing by foreign firms and the setting of artificially low transfer prices on goods sold to Canadian subsidiaries by foreign multinational parent corporations.

Canada agreed to adopt in 1984 the standardized GATT customs valuation procedure. This has involved a switch from "fair market value" to "international transaction price" as the basis for assessment of import duties, at the Tokyo round of GATT trade negotiations that ended in 1979

Technical Barriers

These are technical standards set for imported goods designed to exclude them from the domestic market.

One example might be the requirement that the product should be packed in certain-sized containers when it would clearly be uneconomical for the foreign manufacturer to do so because of the small size of the market.

Another example, unnecessary health regulations may be used to exclude foreign goods.

Voluntary Restraints

Sometimes, when one of its domestic industries is being badly hurt by foreign imports, a government will undertake to persuade the exporting countries to voluntarily restrict their exports.

The government usually obtains co-operation for such a program of voluntary restraint by making explicit or implicit their intention to impose quotas or increase tariffs.

Voluntary restrain, as far as the exporting country is concerned, is the less disagreeable alternative. Canada and the EEC have used this policy to reduce imports of Japanese goods.

France, for example, once required that all imports of Japanese video players be cleared through a tiny Customs office in the inland town of Poitiers.

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