The Impact of Agricultural Protectionism on Global Food Supply Chain

The global food supply chain, constructed upon decades of trade liberalization and transportation innovation, is threatened by the revival of agricultural protectionism. This paper aims to investigate how protectionism through instruments such as tariffs, export bans, subsidies, and non-tariff barriers hinders international trade flows, reconfigure supply chains, and threatens food security. By reviewing literature and selected cases of US–China soybean trade war and Common Agricultural Policy of European Union, this paper finds that protectionism increases market inefficiencies, promotes rapid global integration to regionalization process, enlarges price volatility, and threatens food security especially in import dependent and developing countries where food access and food affordability are more vulnerable. The policy analysis suggests that facing protectionism, the international community needs to strengthen multilateral governance, diversify sourcing strategies, enhance logistics resilience, and increase support for vulnerable countries. The paper concludes that while domestic protectionism may bring short term political and economic benefits for individual countries, it also brings long term risks to global food system. Therefore, international cooperation is needed to balance national interests with global food system resilience and sustainability.