Equal Vote Does Not Favor Global Trade

Abstract

Almost everybody in the world could obtain some benefit from free global exchanges of goods, services, and intellectual creations. But trade is not always a harmonious activity, as different groups in different countries are specialized in different products and each can expect to gain competitive commercial advantage regarding other producers. Actually, the ideal for producers in a country might be to have freedom to export their products everywhere and to erect barriers to imports of competitive goods from everywhere else. Yet this cannot be, of course, the rule for every country. Thus, as the issue of trade implies both potential global advantages and relatively high levels of conflict of interests, setting up an organization to promote and surveil world trade can require attuned negotiations, mutual concessions and balanced formulas to obtain success. The current WTO is not such a case.