At bottom, there is no such thing as free trade. There is only protectionism, in its most literal sense. Everyone looks out for themselves, and protects what is theirs. NAFTA and the WTO have "institutionalized the accumulated advantage of the North," in the words of activist Walden Bello, and they deny poor countries the very tools used to create that advantage in the first place--tariffs, public investment, laws that help develop competitive industry. "Free trade" may create wealth, but creating wealth has very little to do with alleviating poverty. The Third World is already wealthy. It owns the vast majority of the world's resources, an awesome repository of oil, diamonds, fuel and precious minerals. What it lacks is an infrastructure that allows those resources to benefit its sprawling underclass. Free trade agreements benefit the elite of Third World nations, who act as middlemen and grow rich by moving these resources to the North.

thanks to wood s lot