A trade restriction is an artificial restriction on the

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exc ...

goods In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...

and/or services between two or more

countries A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, so ...

. It is the byproduct of

protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulation ...

. However, the term is controversial because what one part may see as a trade restriction another may see as a way to protect consumers from inferior, harmful or dangerous products.

Examples

German purity laws: Beer

Germany required the production of beer to adhere to its purity law. The law, originally implemented in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

in 1516 and eventually becoming law for newly unified Germany in 1871, made many foreign beers unable to be sold in Germany as "beer". This law was struck down in 1987 by the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ, french: Cour de Justice européenne), formally just the Court of Justice, is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European U ...

, but is still voluntarily followed by many German breweries.

US motor vehicle headlamps

Rectangular

headlamp A headlamp is a lamp attached to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the road ahead. Headlamps are also often called headlights, but in the most precise usage, ''headlamp'' is the term for the device itself and ''headlight'' is the term for ...

s were promoted in the United States where round lamps were required until 1975. By 1979, the majority of new cars now had the

rectangular In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containin ...

headlamps. Again, the US permitted only two standardized sizes of

sealed-beam lamp: A system of two 200 mm x 142 mm high/low beam units corresponding to the existing 7" round format, or a system of four 165 mm x 100 mm units (two high/low and two high-beam) corresponding to the existing 5¾ inch (146 mm) round format. In 1968, the

US Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States a ...

outlawed any decorative or protective element in front of the headlamps if the headlamps are switched on. Glass-covered headlamps, like those used on the

Jaguar E-Type The Jaguar E-Type, or the Jaguar XK-E for the North American market, is a British sports car that was manufactured by Jaguar Cars Ltd between 1961 and 1974. Its combination of beauty, high performance, and competitive pricing established the m ...

, the pre-1968

VW Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

, the

Porsche 356 The Porsche 356 is a sports car that was first produced by Austrian company Porsche Salzburg, Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH (1948–1949), and then by German company Porsche, Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH (1950–1965). It was Porsche's first ...

, the

Citroën DS The Citroën DS () is a front mid-engined, front-wheel drive executive car manufactured and marketed by Citroën from 1955 to 1975, in fastback/sedan, wagon/estate, and convertible body configurations, across three series of one generation. ...

and Ferrari Daytona, now had to be equipped with uncovered headlamps for the US market, further altering the look of European models sold in the United States. The change meant that vehicles designed for solid

aerodynamic Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...

performance could not achieve it for the US market. In 1984, the Department changed the rule to allow replaceable-bulb headlamps of nonstandard shapes. However, some automaker could equip a vehicle with the same type of headlamps in the US as in the rest of the world. US headlamp standards are governed by

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 (FMVSS 108) regulates all automotive lighting, signalling and reflective devices in the United States. Like all other Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, FMVSS 108 is administered by the United States ...

, which is incompatible with the UNECE standards, used in most of the rest of the world.

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

has its own headlamp standards that are similar to the US standard but allows UNECE-compliant headlamps. Headlamps were used in cars but also for traffic violation stops. Non-tariff barriers to trade Protectionism {{trade-stub