Tolls, blockades, import taxes, excise duties and extortion. History is full of trade restrictions, sees NRC’s in-house historian Bart Funnekotter. Today Maarten and Bart discuss trade wars through the ages: from clay tablets to silver theft from Assyria to French colbertism, British mercantilism and the American Tariff Act.
Is – or was – the growing free trade since the Second World War the exception to the rule? Is mercantilism, the use of trade as a weapon, making a comeback? And can global free trade actually exist without a superpower?
Do you have a question about economics? Email us at [email protected].
- Presentation:
- Maarten Schinkel & Bart Funnekotter
- Editing & editing:
- Jeanne Geerken
- Mixing:
- Audio chief
- Music:
- Rufus van Baardwijk
- Photography:
- Folkert Koelewijn
- Artwork:
- Yannick Mortier
The journalistic principles of NRC