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Recent examples of protectionism are typically motivated by the desire to protect the livelihoods of politically powerful groups, such as farmers in the United States and European Union, who in the absence of tariffs might be unable to compete with lower-cost foreign producers. In recent years, there has been a renewed discussion of protecionism due to offshore outsourcing. Most economists view this form of protectionism as a disguised transfer payment from consumers (who pay higher prices for food or other protected goods) to local high-cost producers.

It is the stated policy of most First World countries to eliminate protectionism through free tradeFree trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. Free trade is the absence of artificial ( government-imposed) barriers to trade among individuals and firms in different nati policies enforced by international treaties and organizations such as the World Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization which oversees a large number of agreements covering the "rules of trade" between its member states. It was created in 1995 as a secretariat to administer the General Agreement on Tariffs. Despite this, many of these countries still maintain tariff barriers to protect some favored industries, and the elimination of such barriers remains a contentious political and diplomatic issue.