How to Use mercantilism in a Sentence

mercantilism

noun
  • This statist approach was called mercantilism.
    — Steve Forbes, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Yet those very domestic constraints now limit how far states can shift toward neo-mercantilism.
    — Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Time, 15 Jan. 2026
  • Advertisement This is not a simple shift from free trade to mercantilism.
    — Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Time, 15 Jan. 2026
  • The short life span of the deal can be blamed in large part on national barriers — which are likely to rise even further as a new mercantilism emerges.
    — Steven Davidoff Solomon, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2017
  • His steel and aluminum tariffs punish friends who could forge an alliance against Chinese mercantilism.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 10 June 2018
  • Both parties have drifted closer to something like mercantilism; the language of the market has lost its magic.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 17 July 2023
  • Countries through the years have used other means to keep foreign goods out and protect homegrown companies, a practice known as mercantilism.
    — Andrew Mayeda and Bryce Baschuk / Bloomberg, Time, 24 Mar. 2018
  • Why did the Bush administration do so little to fight back against Chinese mercantilism?
    — Reihan Salam, Slate Magazine, 16 May 2017
  • Do not assume that every surplus reflects mercantilism or that every deficit reflects recklessness.
    — James Broughel, Forbes.com, 10 May 2026
  • The two largest economies were reverting to a type of mercantilism from centuries past, trying to weaponize their monopoly-like controls over particular markets or resources.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Monitor, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Part of Smith’s intellectual assault on mercantilism was to attack the power of special interests.
    — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 4 Mar. 2022
  • The Economist was founded in opposition to tariffs and mercantilism.
    — The Economist, 7 June 2018
  • In the 17th and 18th centuries, European empires tried to control colonial trade through mercantilism.
    — R. Grant Gilmore Iii, The Conversation, 30 June 2026
  • Through mercantilism and colonization, Europeans sought natural resources abroad in order to increase their power at home.
    — Kathleen Duval, The Atlantic, 2 Apr. 2024
  • Its wild mercantilism put Genoa in contact with the world, endowing it with the wealth and architectural and artistic grandeur of a city like Venice, and the grit of a port city like Marseille.
    — Tamar Adler, Condé Nast Traveler, 31 May 2017
  • The economy is on an upswing, propped up by debt but also, for now, defying conventional theories that mercantilism will sap China’s creative vigor.
    — Andrew Browne, WSJ, 26 Sep. 2017
  • Some analysts have described the nation’s evolving trade approach as mercantilism, a government effort to prop up exports and restrain imports in pursuit of trade and financial surpluses.
    — Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ, 1 Apr. 2018
  • Adam Smith attacked mercantilism because its tinkering in the economy for special business reasons made citizens worse off by shrinking income and living standards.
    — R. Glenn Hubbard, National Review, 1 Mar. 2022
  • Hume was no fan of slavery, mercantilism, or the apparatus of imperialism; Adam Smith, his compatriot, was more outspoken about these evils still.
    — Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Review of Books, 9 May 2019
  • But no serious critic has offered any other strategy to counter four decades of systematic Chinese mercantilism and economic exploitation.
    — Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 27 Aug. 2019
  • But mercantilism, the erroneous notion that exports are inherently good and imports always bad is not only alive and well in the general populace, but has a grip on the president of our nation and on his commerce secretary.
    — Edward Lotterman, Twin Cities, 3 June 2017
  • Beijing reads the American turn toward imperial neo-mercantilism as a geopolitical gambit to contain China’s rise.
    — Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Time, 15 Jan. 2026
  • Unfortunately, various forms of mercantilism emerged in the 20th century.
    — Steve Forbes, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • From the 16th to 18th centuries, mercantilism dominated as the prevailing economic model.
    — Mirjana Perkovic, Forbes, 9 Jan. 2025
  • Purveyors of the myth that free trade is always good and more is always better are eager to dismiss the havoc wreaked by the introduction of China’s aggressive mercantilism into the global market as an outlier or the exception that proves the rule.
    — Oren Cass, Foreign Affairs, 12 Feb. 2021
  • More ominously, China’s mercantilism is part of a larger Xi Jinping strategy to establish a new military and commercial hegemony in Asia.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 18 Sep. 2018
  • While trade theorists exhorted the US and its partners to practice free trade, China was cleaning America’s clock with an unapologetic strategy of mercantilism.
    — Rober Kuttner, Time, 30 Sep. 2019
  • This is why most economists, ever since Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, reject mercantilism and all the baggage that goes with it, including tariffs.
    — Steve H. Hanke, Fortune, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Economic relations need to consider China’s often predatory mercantilism, IP theft and cyber spying.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 6 May 2021
  • Participants considered inflation and the national debt to be some of the biggest threats facing the American economy, but there were also growing concerns about Chinese mercantilism and the breakdown of the family.
    — Kevin Roberts, National Review, 4 Aug. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mercantilism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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