The growth of trade among developed countries has been encouraged by steadily dropping the tariffs and other barriers which they impose on each other's goods. However, the barriers they impose on the manufactured goods of developing countries have not been dropped to the same extent. In fact new barriers have been created in recent years to limit these imports, as developed countries move to protect their economies from foreign competition. This is a major obstacle to the efforts of the developing countries to expand their exports of manufactures. Relatively high and escalating tariff rates tend to discourage the establishment of export-oriented industries.
Although negotiations have significantly reduced the overall level of tariff protection by developed countries, the benefits of the tariff concessions, on average, have been far greater for the industrialized countries themselves than for the developing countries. Substantial tariff cuts have been made on those products in which industrialized countries dominate world trade (chemicals, machinery, transport equipment, etc), while in general only small tariff cuts have been made on products of current export interest to developing countries (foods, textiles, leather and leather goods and other labour intensive products).