Free trade benefits all. Those who are protected by subsidies, tariffs or other trade restrictions are essentially living parasitically off of the higher prices paid by their neighbors for protected goods and services. Reducing or eliminating trade barriers would remove the governmentally-enforced excess that protected interests receive, but society as a whole benefits.

More importantly, free trade enables poor countries to develop better functioning economies and societies. Rather than depend on leftists to jawbone Western nations into recurring handouts, which leaves poor nations dependent on the dole, free trade would allow those nations to leverage the comparative advantage they enjoy in certain goods and services to build economic growth.

Unfortunately, Europe is leading the effort to block moves to allow poor nations, such as in Africa, to grow. While Europeans love to chide America about giving more and more aid, the EU refuses to let Africa export farm products on a fair basis. Until the EU drops its egregious farm subsidies, nobody should take seriously anything Europeans say about poverty-reduction in the developing world.

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