A Suggested Policy for Industrial Reinvigoration in Latin America

While the seventies will see a continuing debate over the merits of alternative development strategies, histories of Latin America's industrial progress over the past two or three decades can now be filed under ‘import substitution’. Bruton explains, ‘In the narrowest terms, import substitution refers simply to the take-over of an existing domestic market from the foreign producer by prohibiting his imports in one way or another’.

The United States Antidumping Act

Enacted in 1921, the United States law on dumping in international trade was regarded at the time as a “model of draftsmanship.” Present-day technicians are content with its provisions, though they do not echo this encomium. But the reader who approaches the nine closely written pages of the law’s text for the first time is likely to find the experience rather terrifying. These nine pages can be roughly summarized as follows. The Act comes into operation when a foreign producer sells to United States importers at a price less than that which he charges purchasers in his own country, with resultant injury to United States industry. When this is the case, a dumping duty is assessed on the imports, measured by the price differential which has been found.