Tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers: Appraising Colombia’s protectionism

Tariff barriers (TBs) are regulated under the provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), such as the most-favoured-nation treatment article, which establishes that trade concessions granted to one member are applied immediately and without conditions to all other members. Likewise, the schedule of concessions on goods, which indicates that all trade concessions made by members must be reported under the legal agreement’s ‘bound’ rates. Then, if one World Trade Organization (WTO) member raises applied tariffs above their bound level, any WTO member can sue the country for this action. However, on the other hand, the non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are more complex to regulate due to a state’s ability to adopt many different new measures, which makes the measures hard to identify as barriers. Furthermore, the opacity of many NTBs also makes enforcement of regulations a complicated international endeavour. Thus, the international trading system assumes that there will be essential challenges and seeks to develop explicit provisions for this kind of protectionism. This paper, which is based on the findings of a comprehensive review of Colombia’s situation, provides a general explanation of TBs and NTBs as protectionist measures within the foreign trade of this Latin American country. In doing so, the research identifies the TBs and NTBs currently adopted, the effects of these barriers on this economy, and the sectors that are meaningfully affected by these measures.