Yeah! , that is why India is not (yet) a participant on RCEP. Given that I am in rural India , if protectionism saves someone from starvation , I am fine with it.
So the strategy as a whole feeds a cycle of decrepitude, decay, and corruption. Since it's unsustainable, eventually the house of cards collapses and everyone at the bottom of the economic pyramid starves anyway.
It's a particularly nasty case of a policy measure harming the people it was supposed to help. There's an adage in economics, "trade favours the poor"⁽¹⁾. Mark it well.
As a rather extreme example, the so-called "Great Depression" of the 1930s was significantly exacerbated by protectionist trade policies, ostensibly rushed in to shore up local industries with tariffs; in practice this caused the already-declining global levels of trade to collapse entirely.
Protectionism is the opposite of investment and renewal, and an enemy of prosperity.
⁽¹⁾ there's a related saying in political science; "trade stops wars".
I agree with you in your assessment that protectionism breeds inefficiency, but you are imposing your strictly one sided take on 'what should be' without stopping to consider 'why it is',
it's an answer fit for a class of undergrads, quotes and all, but has little to no real world value as its so generalist in its assumption.
Economics is a black art, and subjectivity matters more than the principles.
This isn't some abstract argument. If you want to talk about India, notwithstanding that India is so vast and complex a nation that only the unwary say "India this" or "India that" broadly, the country had a decades-long history of protectionism since independence, trying to get by with very low levels of international trade, and this being a crucial factor in the 1991 economic crisis: the government had no foreign currency reserves at time when the balance of trade was catastrophic due to rising global oil prices and the demand for modern goods from abroad.
Liberalization of trade is not without its problems - in particular, increasing wealth inequities, and cultural imperialism by economic means. Nevertheless, the subsequent lowering of barriers corrected the crises and has defined India's catapult to the top levels of international manufacturing and service provision.
(No value judgement on your position though, I generally think that this treaty is a bad thing due to its role in expanding China's power and influence, when it should be contained.)
Yes this policy helps some rural families, but it also condemns all the other rural families to getting only variable quality, intermittently available, expensive dairy products. Every protectionist support for a local industry imposes a cost on everyone else, to the point where everyone benefits a bit from protection, but also pays costs on all the goods and services they themselves consume. It may even be sustainable, but only at the price of sacrificing the chance of a better future.
Change is painful, no doubt about it, but opening up to international markets can also mean opening up to international investment, technical skills and partnerships. It needs to be coordinated and there should also be transition plans to mitigate some of the pain. I do believe it’s for the best though.