...That is all the WTO and GATT do. That is it. End of story.
True, if only in the most immediate sense. Have you ever, for instance, read
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? Have you seen
Life and Debt? The inner machinations of international trade and aid are far from the simplistic portrait you paint.
In fact, what you're talking about is a totally different thing. I don't even know what to call it. Foreign investment? Political manipulation? Wealth imbalance? In any case, it is a separate problem that has no place in a rational discussion about free trade.
That's like saying Mark Foley's unusual interest in pages, and his party's subsequent coverup of it, hasn't a place in a rational discussion about the current state of US politics. In many instances problems of political manipulation, wealth imbalance and foreign investment are inexorably tied to the way in which first world governments and megacorps practice what they define as "free trade."
