What sense does it actually make to do that? The product - rice - can be locally sourced with a lot of human effort gone into the production of it. This keeps p

What sense does it actually make to do that? The product - rice - can be locally sourced with a lot of human effort gone into the production of it. This keeps people in Japan gainfully employed in agriculture. Japanese consumers also prefer the local product, it is more to their tastes. Then the Japanese rice producers have nothing to fear from free trade. If Japanese consumers don't want it, there will be little shipments of American rice anyways. This of course ignores any subsidies that may artificially effect the market prices of rice in either Japan or America, but free trade is as much about consumer choice as it is about big business selling it's products. I live in Canada. We have a supply managed dairy system that's managed by quotas that farmers own. Part of the management of that system is brutally high tarrifs on foreign milk products, including cheese. The farmers have high income support, but Canada also has among the highest milk prices in the world. This effects poor people as well as limits choice. I'm a cheese snob, and while Canada (in particular around Quebec) can make some very delicious cheeses, I'm left paying exorbitant prices for some of the unique cheeses from Wisconsin, France, Switzerland, etc. The result of this protectionism is that, under WTO rules, Canada exports absolutely zero dairy products. Our cheeses don't compete on a fair market leading to stagnant products that compete on tariffs as high as 800%. Now you may say "great! farmers deserve a good living!" but they're benefiting from protectionism while the rest of the economy is relatively free. If the entire Canadian economy was run on this model, Canadians would have to pay a lot more everything, which would make our standard of living much lower. Farmers just happen to be politically well connected, which at the end of the day are the people who tend to benefit from "trade deals" that restrict certain elements of trade.