To prevent domestic workers from losing jobs to cheap foreign labor.: Pro Trade Restriction: Foreign firms can hire labor at a small fraction of the cost of domestic workers, making competition unfair and causing workers at home to lose jobs because imports made with cheap labor can be produced and sold at a fraction of the price that domestic firms can produce and sell the same products.; Con Trade Restriction: By prohibiting trade, jobs may be saved in some domestic industries that compete with the cheap foreign labor, but other potentially better paying domestic jobs may be lost because exports to the nations in which the trade restrictions are placed are likely to fall.
To allow new industries to grow.: Pro Trade Restriction: Firms in new industries may need a few years to develop to the point where they have a comparative advantage and, in this formative period, such firms should not have to compete with mature foreign firms in the same industry.; Con Trade Restriction: Protection can encourage inefficiency, and prevent firms from lowering costs and improving production methods as quickly as they might if they faced competition.