hildren work for little wages in mines and factories, often in unsafe or unsanitary conditions. Nike shoes and Kathie Lee Giffords Wal-Mart clothing company both were caught using child labor to produce their product cheaply, expoliting the need for jobs and the willingness to work any hours for any pay in poorer countries. If global free trade became a reality, these children would be at the mercy of the profit driven buisinesses. Low wages are another problem, if people will work for close to nothing in developing countries, not only will they not be able to work their way out of poverty, but Americans will lose jobs to cheap foreign labor, helping no one but the large corporations. Another big problem is forced labor, in some countries, people are made to produce products for export, and treated like slaves. WTO free trade without restrictions would give those countries the ability to produce products for companies at incredibly cheap rates, giving them a huge economic advantage, at the expense of their people and eventually themselves. There are also enviornmental issues raised by the idea of Global Free Trade. If companies are allowed to produce their goods in a country where there are no enviornmental restrictions, and export them to a country where enviornmental restrictions do apply, it defeats the purpose of having restrictions at all. In a free economy, if some countries have enviornmental restrictions but others dont, companies will simply do their polluting somewhere else. Also it will draw buisinesses out of countries with restrictions and weaken their economies. (4. Gutermann) Shortly after the WTOs creation it receieved its first trade dispute. Venezuela complained that United States clean-air restrictions favored US based refineries and fuel over Venezuelan ones. A WTO tribunal decided in favor of Venezuela, and in 1997 the US compromised its pollution standards in order to comply with the WTO decision. A major obstica...
