There's a long standing idea in economic development that poor countries need to have highly protectionist import barriers for manufactured goods because they couldn't compete with the industrialized nations.

This predates the more recent concerns about offshoring and outsourcing, where it's the industrialized nations that feel they can't compete with the developing world.

Undisciplined

econ

Imports and Developing Countries: Countering the Myths of Western Exploitation

I must be missing something here. If industrialized Western countries are importing because it’s cheaper, how does that actually decimate production in developing countries? Aren't we talking about the same countries (i.e., imports from developing countries)?

I'd say that importing from developing countries 'wipes out' our local production.