Final answer:
The inability of the national government, under the Articles of Confederation, to regulate interstate trade led to individual states imposing taxes on the importation and exportation of goods. This was a result of the decentralized power structure, with states maintaining more authority than the weak national government causing significant economic difficulties.
Step-by-step explanation:
The weakness of the Articles of Confederation that caused the importation and exportation of goods from state to state to be taxed by individual states was the inability to regulate trade. This was due to the decentralized authority in the Confederation where states were sovereign and the national government was weak.
This inability to regulate interstate commerce allowed each state to impose tariffs on items from other states and disrupt trade. Not only were states able to raise taxes on goods from other states, but the national government was unable to impose any kind of uniform trade policy, creating significant economic disruption. This led to several systemic issues, like an inability to pay off national debts, trade disputes among states, and difficulties in handling the country's financial needs. The national government was also unable to prevent foreign merchants from flooding the U.S. market with low-cost goods, harming American producers.
In summary, it was the lack of effective national governance and the power imbalance favouring the states, as explicitly stated in the Articles, that led to this taxation issue and many other problems in the early years of the United States.
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