Self-study
Trade official: Country X deserves economic retribution for its protectionism. ████████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██████████████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ██ █ ███ ████████████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████ ██
Summary
The author concludes that we should still sell to X the agricultural equipment it ordered, despite the fact that country X deserves economic retribution for its protectionism.
Why?
Because there is high demand in our country for agricultural imports from X. And these considerations override the fact that country X deserves retribution.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that backing out of our sale of equipment to X might result in X’s selling a decreased amount of agricultural products to our own country.
The author also assumes that the value of the agricultural imports we get from country X is higher than the value of enacting retribution on country X by refusing to sell our agricultural equipment to it.
24.
The argument depends on assuming █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
a
Agricultural components of █████████████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ ████ ███████████████ ████████████
Nonagricultural commodities have nothing to do with the reasoning of the argument, which concerns agricultural equipment and agricultural imports.
b
The ability to ████ ███████ ████████ █████████ ████████████ ██ ████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ████ ██ █████ █████████████ ████████
The ability to “enter international markets” is not what’s at stake. What’s at stake is the potential for country X to not be able to supply us with enough agricultural imports if we decide not to sell the agricultural equipment to it. So the author doesn’t have to assume anything about the ability to enter international markets.
c
We should never ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █ █████████████ ████████
“Never” is too extreme. The author doesn’t assume that we should never allow our interests to be threatened to punish a protectionist country. It’s just that in this specific situation — where our country demands a product that could be produced by the other country — we shouldn’t hurt the ability of that other country to produce the product just for retribution. But in other cirumstances, the author might agree that it’s OK to jeopardize our own interests to punish a protectionist country.
d
In most cases, █████████ █ █████████████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████
Not necessary, because the author is advocating that in this circumstance, we should take an action that doesn’t involve punishing a protectionist country. So it wouldn’t undermine the author’s reasoning if (D) were not true.
e
We should balance ███ ███████ ██ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ████████████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████
Necessary, because if it were not true — if there is no reason to balance the justice of an action with the consequences to our own interests — then we would have no reason to refrain from punishing country X. The author’s reasoning is based on withholding punishment in this case because of how the punishment will affect our interest in getting agricultural imports from X.