Critical Reasoning

Banning imports of certain products forestalls competition by forcing consumers to buy domestic products. Yet, preventing competition from imports discourages domestic producers from making the improvements necessary to bring products up to the highest possible standards. Therefore, there is no consumer advantage to banning imports of certain products.Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the conclusion above?

A. Import bans can provide domestic producers the time they need to bring to market products they otherwise would not have the financial resources to develop.

B. Import bans on certain products often cause other countries, whose companies manufacture those products, to enact their own import bans.

C. A country's economic strength is more important to its survival than the availability of choice to its consumers.

D. When there is not a significant price difference, consumers tend to choose the products of domestic producers over those of foreign producers.

E. Bans and tariffs on imports can have unpredictable effects on currency exchange rates.

I will put OA later on after we have a few reasonable discussions on this question. My Choice: D.

Thanks!

IMO A .

Thats the only option that is not against ban .

We need a option which says "Banning imports have customer advantages"

E) Currency exchange rates is out of scope
D) strenghtes the conclusion
C) Not bad but countries economic strength is out of scope
B) Out of scope.. wht other countries do with their imports
A) ban is helping the producers

Not even one is helping my opinion in my first line

AIM GMAT wrote:IMO A .

Thats the only option that is not against ban .

@ AIM GMAT: But how is it going to add to consumer advantage?

Hi Nishi..

We are not left with any option other than A... all are out of scope or strengthen

HSPA wrote:Hi Nishi..

We are not left with any option other than A... all are out of scope or strengthen

@HSPA: I would be thankful, if you could elaborate your reasoning.

A. Import bans can provide domestic producers the time they need to bring to market products they otherwise would not have the financial resources to develop.

So the highlighted part seems to be the customer advantage , and also agree with HSPA if you go with the process of elimination we are left with only and only option A .

Hope that helps.

By the way whts the source of the question ?

Hi Nishi,

Kindly see my above reply's comments.. I have modified option C.

Actually I was looking for an option which helps my initial opinion but none of them match... A is best of the worse option which i chose...

So what is OA and OEs

HSPA wrote:Hi Nishi,

Kindly see my above reply's comments.. I have modified option C.

Actually I was looking for an option which helps my initial opinion but none of them match... A is best of the worse option which i chose...

So what is OA and OEs

@AIM GMAT & HSPA: Thanks for your explanation. I think in this case we have to look for the best among worsts...

OA is indeed option A.