Dhaka, Jan. 29 -- Aimed at pulling up the cost of foreign products, protecting domestic industries, and raising revenue, tariffs are taxes or duties imposed by a government on imported commodities. These are used as an important tool in inter-governmental economic policy-making, as they influence foreign trade, affect consumer prices, but often lead to disputes between nations. However, economists have traditionally considered them as potentially self-defeating protectionism that hinder international trade and increase prices for the people they are supposed to protect. This has been the philosophy that led to a decline in tariff rates levied by the global economic super-power USA from 18.4 per cent in 1934 to below 2 per cent in 2007.

T...