the strong form of the standards argument is "health and safety standards", where we don't want DDT or chloroflourocarbons (if I have that right) used anywhere in the world, nor to inflict them on other people. However, we don't live in malarial swamps (any more). A country where malaria is a major health problem might have a different rational optimum for pesticides.

But as you move down rungs of the standards ladder, it becomes a less defensible argument. "3rd world" economies might not be able to afford cars nor have the infrastructure to support "our standards" for bumpers, air bags, etc., or be willing to use cheaper quality ladders because they are cheaper.

Then there is a strong economic argument that, if you give up the bottom of a market because it's not profitable, you will create new competitors who climb up from the bottom and overwhelm you. This is a good part of how the post-WWII Japanese manufacturing companies overwhelmed Western companies. (and essentially the path followed by all of the Asian Tigers, and before them America vs Europe) The reason this phenomenon takes place is that if you make a million crappy little cars a year, and you save $0.01 on each nut and bolt, or on installing each nut and bolt, those savings are important because they multiply, even to the point where you can afford to study and look for things like that. If you're making luxury cars only, you don't pay attention to stuff like that, but that means, ultimately, your manufacturing technology falls behind, and when the efficient producers decide to make luxury cars efficiently, they are just plain better cars. (for more information see "learning curve advantages" and "McKinsey, British Motorcyle Industry". Learning curve advantages are not scale advantages, but they work better at scale. Learning curve advantages are thought to be more or less logarythmic to scale, somewhat like moving out the tail of a Gaussian, first you eliminate the 1 of 100 problems, then you eliminate the 1 of 1000 problems, etc.)

So, for international commodity chemical companies, why stop manufacturing a chemical that the purchasers can simply buy somewhere else? It makes you smaller and helps your competitors.

The headline should not read "continue to export", it should read "continue to import", because that is what is happening; unless you show that the "Nestle of hardware stores" not only manufactures the products, but also controls the retailers in the foreign countries.