Changes

In the Medieval period, around the 13th century, we begin to see more regulation of tariff costs for specific commodities. Wool, for instance, was heavily regulated in England in the 13th and 14th centuries. Tariffs were relatively high as wool was seen as an important pillar of the English Medieval economy and protecting it was a chief goal. Other commodities, such as skins and leather, lead, tin, butter, cheese, lard and grease, were levied as well. However, rather than a specified rate, often the taxes were based on the container of the commodity of trade. For instance, a sack of wool was levied at roughly 6 shillings and 8 pence. This could allow merchants, of course, to cheat more easily by switching commodities in sacks, which were taxed at variable rates, or containers were smuggled without a tax.  Items would be weighed but the volume of trade meant not everything could be easily inspected. Ports and trade routes were often levied to directly benefit the crown. This tradition in England, nevertheless, began to influence the rise and development of the modern concept of tariffs that occurred as Britain expanded into an empire in the 17th and 18th centuries.<ref>For more on Medieval trade in England and its tariffs, see: Rose, Susan. 2018. <i>The Wealth of England: The Medieval Wool Trade and Its Political Importance 1100-1600</i>. Oxford: Oxbow Books.</ref>

[[File:File-20170720-24017-1hxq3ej.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Figure 2. The Corn Laws were tariffs on agricultural grains which that intended to expand the domestic production of food. However, the tariffs impeded aid to Ireland, leading to their eventual removal.]]In the late 18th century, Great Britain began to dominate oceanic trade with its powerful navy. At this time, tariffs were very high, roughly 50 percent, which made the import of goods mostly uneconomical. This reflected the political era, where Britain competed with France and Spain for dominance of the high seas, where each actor attempted to limit trade with the other. Tariffs in the early 19th century were still high; however, Britain's trade in given products began to greatly expand during the early Industrial Revolution, slowly influencing its outlook on trade. Gradually, Britain reduced tariffs and entirely removed them for food commodities in 1840s with the repeal of the Corn Laws (Figure 2). This was, in part, motivated by events in Ireland, which was experiencing the Great Famine that led to a need to export food. Tariffs were often seen as a way to protect domestic industry and economic sectors such as agriculture.

GATT became the framework in which other trade agreements, including the European Community (EC), which developed into the European Union, in creating regional and bilateral trade agreements. With the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, and the increasing influence of the International Monetary Fund, WTO, and World Bank, countries have increasing increasingly lowered tariffs and signed trade agreements at much higher rates since the 1990s. Regional trade agreements were seen as an important goal, with North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America forming varying agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an iteration of this in the early 1990s.

Today, free trade agreements have generated controversy as many industries see the benefit of moving manufacturing overseas to lower costs and many countries abandon some forms of manufacturing all together altogether as countries are better able to produce goods at lower costs. Free trade agreements have helped to reorient global trade, with increasingly low margin manufacturing, such as textiles and basic consumer products, moving to developing develop countries, while high technology manufacturing is still dominated by mostly most developed countries, although this is also now being challenged.  Rising countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (the so-called BRICS) have increasingly benefited from free trade agreements. Nevertheless, in more developed countries, there has been a backlash against free trade agreements because it has had the effect of reducing manufacturing production in some economic sectors.<ref>For more on the evolution of the modern globalized economy and its relation to tariffs, see: Irwin, Douglas A, Petros C Mavroidis, and A. O Sykes. 2009. <i>The Genesis of the GATT</i>. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. </ref>