Well....a door not so tiny....but on the other side is inaccessible Mexican desert
Label the door:
Special door dedicated to Ford and Carrier products
staffed by a single customs inspector
who will inspect everything .
July 6, 1985|By R.C. Longworth, Chicago Tribune Don Hughes, chief financial officer of Burlington Industries, the nation`s biggest textile company, is talking about how world trade really works.
``When the ship got to the other port,`` Hughes said, ``it found a tiny, one-man customs point, and that one officer was under orders to inspect every yard of textiles that came through him.
``Well, something like that can extend your delivery a couple of months. By that time, the customer is fed up, and he cancels the order. It only takes a few of these to ruin a market for you.``
Hughes wouldn`t say what country did this to his exports, but it sounds like what France did to Japan when a flood of Japanese video cassette recorders started to inundate the French market. The French government ruled that all imported VCRs had to clear customs at a small, undermanned customs post at Poitiers, a long way from any border. After millions of dollars of VCRs became backlogged in the Poitiers parking lot, the Japanese got the point and agreed to limit their exports to France.
Barriers To Trade Growing July 6, 1985|By R.C. Longworth, Chicago Tribune
``We exported some textiles, put them on a ship. When they got there, the customs point at that port had been closed, and the ship had to go to another port 1,000 miles away.`