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Protectionism is a social policy in Civilization V. It is part of the Commerce tree and requires Mercantilism. In Brave New World it requires also Entrepreneurship.
To achieve a good position in trading sometimes it is necessary to restrict it. In fact, many developed trading societies have found that introducing policies that limit the influx of foreign goods, after their own society has already developed a healthy economy, works to everyone's benefit. Local producers are protected from such effects as dumping strategies and cheap foreign labor, while local populace learns to value the worth of the limited amount of foreign goods available.
Game Info[]
- +1 (+2 in
and ) Happiness from each Luxury resource.
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Strategy[]
This is one of the most powerful 
Happiness-boosting Policies in the game, outside of Ideological Tenets. Each luxury resource now produces a +6 Happiness, up from +4. Needless to say, the more access you have to Luxuries, the greater the effect of this Policy. Use the resulting Happiness to achieve more 
Golden Ages, or in any other way that high Happiness affords.
Civilopedia entry[]
Protectionism is the policy of restraining trade between nations through quotas, taxes and other methods. It is employed by countries who seek to slow or stop foreign goods and services from entering national markets and thereby "protecting" the local industries. Protectionism is also used by rulers who wish to limit their citizens' contact with foreign people and goods, either because they think that foreign things are evil, or because they don't want their citizens to know how badly off they are compared with people elsewhere in the world. North Korea is an example of a grotesquely protectionist state, its leaders limiting contact with the outside world to keep the North Koreans unaware of their own backwardness.