8 Trade Will free trade cause you to lose your job? As protesters cover their faces for protection from the fumes of the fire and tear gas released by Seattle police, hundreds of World Trade Organization (WTO) delegates are stranded, unable to pass through...
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8 Trade Will free trade cause you to lose your job? As protesters cover their faces for protection from the fumes of the fire and tear gas released by Seattle police, hundreds of World Trade Organization (WTO) delegates are stranded, unable to pass through the blockade of 40,000 people at the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999. This free trade protest, sometimes called “the Battle of Seattle,” was not an uncommon event, as its predecessor—the worldwide “Carnival Against Capitalism”—garnered a similar number of demonstrators. Faced with such passionate opposition to free trade, you may be surprised to learn the major lesson of this chapter: free trade always benefits both trading partners. This is a key reason we observe so much interdependence in the world today. If free trade is always beneficial, what has upset these protesters? Are they being irrational? Would a brief course in economics have prevented 40,000 people from blockad- ing the streets of Seattle? In fact, we will see that
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