SUMMARY
Summary: This paper examines the history of trade policy in Great Britain and the United States and also refer to the cases of Germany and France. This paper indicates that it is a fallacy that early industrializers could have developed their industrial sector without infant industry protection. Indeed in all cases, to develop their industries, they went through an infant industry protection phase and heavy government intervention in the foreign sector. Nevertheless, the degree of protection and government intervention varied from one country to another. The United States was the motherland of infant industry protection not only at the intellectual level but also in actual fact. Despite the fact that the Industrial Revolution contributed to the rapid industrialization of Great Britain, its industrial sector benefited from trade protection and other forms of government intervention in the trade flow through the Navigation Act and by means of political power and even military power. [English only]
