Paper Topic:
International Trade Relations
How Free Trade Harms the Environment Name University Course Lecturer Date Free trade facilitates competition , and promotes demand for good and services . Ideally , free trade is supposed to promote economic growth giving consumers more purchasing power and therefore increasing their demand for goods and services . Many of the products the consumers purchase are extracted from natural resources . This essentially means that higher purchasing power leads to aggressive extraction of these resources . Most natural resources are extracted and processed in processes which are harmful to the environment . Further
, increased consumption leads to heavier emission of waste products which are harmful to the environment . For instance , as people buy more and more automobiles , the amount of carbon monoxide , carbon dioxide and nitrous dioxide released into the atmosphere every day increases
Secondly , free trade encourages foot-loose and polluting firms to take advantage of laxity in environmental standards by relocating to countries with the weakest regulations (Hassoun , 2009 . More often than not , poor countries are more likely to have poorer environmental regulations compared to wealthy countries . To attract and retain firms poor states may be more willing to loosen and maintain lower environmental standards . By investing in these countries , polluting firms do not have to pay for their harmful activities . Consequently , the polluters have no incentive to make their operations friendlier to the environment . Without free trade , such companies would have to remain in their home countries , where environmental regulations may not tolerate unnecessary pollution
Thirdly , free trade stands on among other pillars , comparative...
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