The economist Adam Smith was the first to formulate why free trade is benificial to ALL people involved. Bare with me and look at the following example. It's brilliant in it's simplicity and would easily have won Smith the Nobel prize - had that prize existed in his time...

Let's say that the Italians manufacture cars for 10.000 dollars a piece and sell them for 11.000 dollars. They also produce a thousand sausages for 10.000 dollars and sell them for 12.000 dollars. Their profit on cars is a 1000 dollars, on sausages 2000 dollars.

The Germans also produce cars and sausages, but their profits are the other way around, 2000 dollars on cars, 1000 dollars on sausages.

Those Italians making cars would make more profit by producing sausages and SELLING them to Germans! Those Germans making sausages would make more profit by producing cars and selling them to Italians!

Free trade is about doing what you're best at and offering it to domestic AND foreign consumers. A win-win situation, both for producers (employers and employees), who make more profit and higher wages, and consumers (Italians and Germans), who get higher value for money.

Free trade has been one of the driving forces behind the growth of prosperity in the Western World. The absence of free trade between the Western World and parts of the rest of the world (Western trade barriers) is one of the main reasons for the underdevelopment and poverty of those parts of the world.

Free trade isn't what makes or keeps certain parts of the world poor. Trade barriers are...

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