economic independence in turn limits the guarantee that a NIC will be able to service its international debt or commercial paper, and Helleiner criticizes financial institutions in developed countries for advocating free trade as a principle instead of fostering the kind of economic independence that would guarantee NIC repayments long term. Indeed, he proposes a formal system of sanctions and reparations against countries--chiefly it seems of the EEC--that deliberately restrict trade in one form or another.
Yoffie details a point that Helleiner refers to but does not develop: that protectionist trade policies, designed to entrench the clout of traditionally powerful countries as against upstart entrants into foreign trade, were to various degrees circumvented by the aggressive and resourceful export efforts of Asia throughout the 1970s, with the ultimate result that by 1980, some Asian NICs had achieved significant import penetration in the U.S. Because they were bound to lose any direct confrontation with the U.S
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