>The industries move away and carry the customers away with them. Um, this doesn't seem right at all. It really depends on the industry/product, and also on t

>The industries move away and carry the customers away with them. Um, this doesn't seem right at all. It really depends on the industry/product, and also on the country. The US is probably the largest single market in the world, so it's pretty hard to not do business there and do well as a company, especially if you already do most of your business there. (Obviously, this doesn't apply to local/regional businesses, such as a supermarket chain in Italy or wherever.) If Toyota was suddenly not allowed to sell in the US, that would be a gigantic blow to their revenues and business. If Ford was in this spot, it would probably be the end of the company. If Trader Joe's couldn't operate in the US any more, that would be the end of them; they can't just pack up and move to China. Amazon can't exactly pack up and move to China and "carry the customers away with them" either; that really makes no sense. No, protectionism generally doesn't work, but only generally. Lots of countries (all of them?) are protective of some portion of their local industry, usually for national strategic interests. You don't want to tie the very survival of your people to some potentially hostile foreign nation, by relying on them for your food supply, for instance.