Free Fair Trade

Free Genuinely Fair

None of this will arrive in a single treaty. It will come the way the abolition of slavery and the spread of the vote came: in fits and starts, through pressure from citizens, the example of pioneers, and the slow realization that the old way costs more than the new. Imagine, then, a world where trade is genuinely free and genuinely fair. What would change? Start with the kitchen table. Families everywhere would pay less for food, clothing, medicine, and electronics, since competition and efficient production would no longer be hobbled by artificial barriers. Economists estimate that removing remaining trade barriers could add trillions of dollars to global output, and because lower prices matter most to those with the least money, the benefits would flow disproportionately to the poor. Consider the farmer in sub-Saharan Africa who currently competes against subsidized foreign grain. In a fair system, she could sell her harvest at an honest price, invest in better seed and tools, and send her children to school. Multiply that story across millions of smallholders, and entire regions could shift from aid dependence to self-sustaining growth. Countries that earn their way do not need to beg, and that dignity matters as much as the dollars. Wealthy nations would gain as well. Wider markets would reward their most innovative firms, and cheaper inputs would lower costs for manufacturers and consumers alike. A prosperous developing world means more customers for everyone’s goods, and fewer crises of poverty and instability that spill across borders as conflict or forced migration. Trade has an old and sensible link to peace: countries whose economies are woven together have more to lose from fighting. A merchant is rarely eager to bomb his best customer. Fair trade could also help the planet. When rules reward clean production and penalize pollution, competition becomes an engine of improvement rather than a race to the bottom. Technology for solar panels, efficient batteries, and sustainable agriculture could spread faster if it were not trapped behind tariffs, with patent law barriers.

Marketplace Shared Partners

Perhaps the greatest gain would be harder to measure. People who trade fairly come to know and trust one another. A world in which the baker in Lagos, the engineer in Seoul, and the shopkeeper in São Paulo all see themselves as partners in a shared marketplace is a world with fewer reasons for suspicion. Commerce is not a replacement for justice or diplomacy, but it is one of the oldest ways humans have found to turn strangers into neighbors. The history of trade is a long argument between two instincts: the instinct to exchange and the instinct to control. The first built the Silk Road, the monsoon routes, and the modern container port. The second built tolls, monopolies, tariffs, and trade wars. Neither will ever vanish entirely, because both are rooted in human nature, one in our curiosity and generosity, the other in our fear and appetite for advantage. But the lesson of ten thousand years is that the first instinct tends to win, slowly, whenever people insist on it. Free fair trade is not a destination we will reach one day and then rest. It is more like a garden, requiring constant weeding of special privileges and constant replanting of shared rules. The work is never finished, yet every season of tending leaves the ground richer than before. If we keep at it, the old handshake between two strangers, the one that began everything, can finally be extended to everyone on Earth, with a grip that is firm, honest, and equal on both sides. Policies of Nation States can be amended to improve bilateral free fair trade agreements. Most likely the best way forward is to require trading partners to purchase and equal amount of raw and finish goods from each other. This would go along way in equalizing balance of trade for all participants and reduce any trade surplus of anyone Nation State. The trading partners can settle the imbalance at the end of the year, by selling or purchasing the amount of the surplus or deficiency from each other. The goods could be any combination of raw or finished, they may provide equivalent sum in cash payments to cure the trade imbalance for that year’s trading action.

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