This dissertation intends to shed light on several very recent and crucial themes in International Trade. The first chapter shows both theoretically and empirically how raw material-rich countries use export restrictions upstream to give manufacturing sectors downstream a competitive advantage. Estimating a fixed-effect model, I provide evidence that export restrictions on industrial raw materials upstream help promote manufacturing exports downstream. The second chapter of this dissertation deals with a different aspect of international trade. A too strict environmental regulation might hurt domestic firms as it imposes higher costs. However, firms may also benefit from strict environmental regulations that may protect them from foreign competition and encourage them to innovate. Estimating a difference-in-difference model in a three-dimensional panel for the case of EU regulation on mercury, I show that stricter environmental regulation of the type that restricts input materials and not the production process can entail either an import promotion or an import protection effect - depending on whether foreign countries have a comparative advantage in the cleaner alternative of the product. In the third chapter, I show how a raw material rich country can climb up the quality ladder in the global value chain through imposing export restrictions on industrial raw materials.