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  3. The Trade Protection Society Doctrine in the Crisis Comparisons to the Depression feature are in almost every discussion of

The Trade Protection Society Doctrine in the Crisis Comparisons to the Depression feature are in almost every discussion of

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问题             The Trade Protection Society Doctrine in the Crisis
    Comparisons to the Depression feature are in almost every discussion of the global economic crisis. In world trade, such parallels are especially chilling. Trade declined alarmingly in the early 1930s as global demand imploded, prices collapsed and governments embarked on a destructive, protectionist spiral of higher tariffs and retaliation.
    Trade is contracting again, at a rate unmatched in the post-war period. This week the WTO predicted that the volume of global merchandise trade would shrink by 9% this year. This will be the first fall in trade flows since 1982. Between 1990 and 2006 trade volumes grew by more than 6% a year, outstripping the growth rate of world output, which was about 3 % . Now the global economic machine has gone into reverse: output is declining and trade is tumbling at a faster pace. The turmoil has shaken commerce in goods of all sorts, bought and sold by rich and poor countries alike.
    It is too soon to talk of a new protectionist spiral. Nevertheless, errors of policy risk make a bad thing worse—despite politicians’ promises to keep markets open. When they met in November, the leaders of the G20 rich and emerging economies declared that they would eschew protectionism and will doubtless do so again when they meet on April 2nd. But this pledge has not been honoured. According to the World Bank, 17 members of the group have taken a total of 47 trade restricting steps since November.
    Modern protectionism is more subtle and varied than the 1930s version. In the Depression tariffs were the weapon of choice. America’s Smoot-Hawley act, passed in 1930, increased nearly 900 American import duties and provoked widespread retaliation from America’s trading partners. A few tariffs have been raised this time, but tighter licensing requirements, import bans and anti-dumping have also been used. Rich countries have included discriminatory procurement provisions in their fiscal-stimulus bills and offered subsidies to ailing national industries. These days, protectionism comes in 57 varieties.
    There are good reasons for thinking that the world has less to fear from protectionism than in the past. International agreements to limit tariffs, built over the post-war decades, are a safeguard against all-out tariff wars. The growth of global supply chains, which have bound national economies together tightly, have made it more difficult for governments to increase tariffs without harming producers in their own countries.
    But these defences may not be strong enough. Multilateral agreements provide little insurance against domestic subsidies, fiercer use of anti-dumping or the other forms of creeping protection.
The word "outstripping" (Line 8, Para. 2) most probably means______.
选项 A、surpassing
B、increasing
C、decreasing
D、being beneath
答案A
解析 事实细节题。根据题干提示定位至第二段。本段提供的数字较多，可以根据数字推断outstrip的含义。根据第四句第一个逗号之前可知：1990至2006年问世界贸易额每年增长超过6％；第一个逗号之后是关于世界产品产量的叙述：同期世界产品产量的增长率为3％。由此可见，世界贸易额的年增长率超过了同期世界产品产量的增长率。因而，答案应该是[A]。
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