All the evidence points to trade making a major contribution to increasing standards of
living and to lifting people out of poverty. The majority would almost certainly be poorer
if there had been no trade liberalization and no international trade rules.
Has trade worsened inequality? This is debatable, and the economic evidence is complex -
inequality can rise and fall as countries go through different levels of development.
However, even if the world were more equal without trade, it would almost certainly be
poorer, and most of the poor would almost certainly be poorer.
Trade liberalization and investment liberalization are not the same thing.
against investment creating jobs in poor countries amounts to arguing that the poorest
people in the world should be kept poor.
There is also plenty
of evidence to support the argument that trade, by raising incomes, helps poor countries
find the resources to protect their environment.
(There is also a
contradiction in the logic of the critics' argument here. If trade does encourage
companies to migrate to low-wage countries and to pull down wages in developed countries,
then it must be reducing inequality. As always, the reality is much more complex because
it depends on a lot of factors such as productivity, technology, etc, so investment and
trade can mean gains both for those in developed and developing countries.)