Protectionist countries will be worst hit by the financial crisis wracking the world, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez warned Thursday.
Gutierrez, who was on a visit to Brazil to meet business leaders at the American Chamber of Commerce in Rio de Janeiro, did not name which states he thought were most at risk.
But in Latin America, Brazil, Chile and Peru were all competitive, with strong exports, and "are the strongest markets which will emerge well," he said, according to a Portuguese translation of his remarks given at a lunch-conference and obtained by AFP.
Nevertheless, economic growth in those countries and others would be below forecasts and a "difficult situation" was looming over the coming months, he said.
"More than ever, trade is essential," Gutierrez said. "The best way to protect economies is to export and to go into open markets, markets which have learnt to compete."
The US secretary noted that in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States made the error of raising tariffs and erecting import barriers, which sparked retaliation from other countries and worsened the economic contraction.
US unemployment hit 25 percent in that period. "It's for that reason we cannot thing that the solution is protectionism," he said.
"We must accelerate trade because the only thing that can compensate the losses (from the financial crisis) is trade," he said.
Copyright 2008  AFP American Edition
