Could Poor Countries Benefit from Free Trade?

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Could poor countries benefit from free trade? ----the impact of free trade on poor countries Introduction With more and more countries joining the WTO, globalization especially free trade becomes unavoidable. The statement is that the world’s poorest countries are at a competitive disadvantage in almost every sector of their economies. Free trade cannot possibly be in the interests of such nations. The essence of this statement is denying the possibility that free trade could bring positive effect to world’s poorest countries. So free trade is really a fair trade to poor countries?Actually, the main argument does not come from whether rich countries should open market to support the development of poor countries, instead, the focus is whether the liberalization is the burden of poor countries. The essay will critically discuss the statement pro and con by listing theory support and example support separately. From the pro angle, free trade is unfair to poor countries because poor countries has no competitive advantages in almost every sector and no absolute advantage means no trade according to related theory; From the con angle, free trade still could be in the interests of poor countries even though they have no absolute advantage because free trade offer more choices and lower price, in addition, poor countries could still develop comparative advantage according to supportive theory. The conclusion will be driven from the analysis below, which will finally regard free trade as a double-edged sword. Poor countries should treat free trade in a more rational way and accept it partly with reservation. Free trade is bad for poor countries Theory support Merchandise regards the relation between countries as “zero-sum” game, which means wealth is certain and gain wealth in one country means losing wealth in another--- win-win is

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