THE LONG VIEW

It began with Prussia in 1834—not with a grand treaty, but with standardized weights, modernized customs houses, and telegraph lines linking markets. The Zollverein didn’t unify Germany through tariffs alone, but by building the invisible architecture of trust and efficiency that made protection meaningful [1]. A century later, the European Coal and Steel Community laid not just quotas, but inspectors, shared records, and legal enforcement mechanisms—because leaders had learned that tariffs without teeth are just suggestions [2]. Now, in West Africa, the ECOWAS CET repeats the old mistake: designing the roof before the foundation. The 2015–2024 data shows growth in Nigeria’s cement sector not because of the CET’s tariff bands, but because Nigeria invested in port automation and tax compliance systems—while neighbors without such infrastructure saw tariffs evaded through bush paths and bribes [3]. The pattern is ancient: protection works only when the state can see, enforce, and adapt. Otherwise, the tariff wall becomes a sieve, and the promised industrial renaissance, a mirage. —Sir Edward Pemberton