Liberalizing trade can provide economic benefits but also risks. It may bring wealth and jobs to developing countries by growing their economies faster, driving innovation through competition. However, it requires oversight to ensure fairness and protect people from harmful products. While environmental goods could spread with trade, pollution regulations must be strong. Biodiversity could suffer if local industries are replaced by large ones ignoring sustainability.

1. Liberalizing Trade
Kelly Kokaisel
PRO:
Wealth: Liberalizing trade can bring jobs and wealth to communities that they can then use for
infrastructure, education, and energy improvements. ‘The World Bank has reported that per capita real
income grew nearly three times faster for the developing countries that lowered trade barriers (5
percent per year) than for other developing countries (1.4 percent per year) in the 1990s’. This can
bring people out of poverty and provide education that can make them productive world citizens that
will eventually make everyone better off overall. [1]
Ephemeralization: Liberalizing trade creates competition in the market place, driving down costs and
forcing producers to find ways to do more with less. This pressure creates forces which move people to
think differently to create efficiencies in production. [1]
Environment: ‘…liberalizing trade in environmental goods and services can support sustainable
development goals by providing greater access at lower cost to key environmental technologies in areas
such as wastewater management, solid and hazardous waste management, remediation of soil and
water, and protection of ambient air and renewable energy production.’ The wealth and
ephemeralization from liberating trade can be leveraged to direct more resources to protecting and
restoring the environment. Any culture, rich or poor, can utilize this benefit. [1]
CON:
Big Government: ‘Along with tariff peaks and tariff escalation, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) remain
important concerns for developing countries and require negotiating solutions when assessing potential
development gains from trade’. To protect people from harmful products or services, more government
oversight is necessary. Laws to test products to ensure they are not harmful, border patrol, and
mediation resources need to be funded and in place in order to assure fairness in global trade. [2]
Biodiversity: In west Africa, for example, there is a small species of fish that is a cheap form of protein
for the communities there. Artisan fishermen there catch the fish on a small scale to feed their families
or villages. If trade were opened there, large industries could come in and not only destroy the
populations of fish, but rob the communities of their cheap source of protein. [3]
Pollution Haven: ‘Freer trade means greater specialization, increasing the concentration of polluting
industries in some countries and decreasing it in others’. This is true in some South American
communities where environmental regulations are not as strict. Increasing free trade in areas where
pollution regulations are low would preclude them to abuse those freedoms and pollute their
environment in trade for a more productive economy, creating major imbalance. [4]

2. [1] http://www.america.gov/st/business-english/2007/January/20080608132136xjyrreP0.6870691.html
[2] http://www.unctad.org//Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=6765&intItemID=3549&lang=1
[3] http://www.foroyaa.gm/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5352
[4] http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10585.html