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Trade campaign
The WTO explained
The WTO is an international body that is supposed to oversee world trade to the benefit of us all. Yet since its establishment in 1995, it has rapidly developed a reputation for increasing inequality between countries. It has failed poor countries in favour of the rich, and is now failing citizens in favour of corporations.
The WTO promotes "free trade" or "trade liberalisation": the economic exchange of goods and services between countries, without government intervention and regulation. The reality is very different.
International trade in goods and services is worth over £11.5 billion a day, but it is rich countries and their multinationals who reap the vast majority of the benefits. The rules that govern world trade discriminate against the poor: the poorest 49 countries make up 10 per cent of the world's population, but account for only 0.4 per cent of world trade.
Trade rules also favour big business: 70 per cent of world trade is controlled by multinational corporations.
WTO rules:
- make it difficult for developing countries to nurture their industries in the way that industrialised countries did during their own development.
- have made it impossible for developing countries to protect their small farmers who are unable to compete with large agribusiness and heavily subsidised US and European farmers.
- on bananas leave impoverished Caribbean farmers competing in the global market with the multinationals that already control most of the banana trade.
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