Chapter 16 Chapter Summary

International trade poses major challenges for development practitioners and academics. This chapter introduced the reader to the perspectives of free trade and fair trade: free trade is premised on the notion that the removal of barriers to trade and the limitation of state intervention in the market will provide the greatest developmental gains for all; fair trade is premised on the belief that the poorest developing countries cannot attain substantial benefits from global trade unless the terms of North–South trade are readjusted and market interventionist mechanisms are employed to support development efforts. The influence on development of these perspectives was assessed through a general history of international trade since 1945. The second half of the chapter discussed the limits of a trade perspective. Many international “trade agreements” have a much broader political and developmental agenda than just trade—in fact, trade liberalization is often, at best, of secondary importance to the goal of protecting the property rights of transnational corporations and limiting the rights of states to intervene in their operations for the sake of social, environmental, or developmental concerns. The final section considered the impact of COVID-19 on international trade.