From article:
Economists love free trade, not least for its positive effects on residents of poor countries, and naturally this has become a frequently invoked argument on behalf of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. "Here is an assessment from the Peterson Institute that Vietnam will be the biggest gainer from TPP," Tyler Cowen writes. "Do you get that, progressives? Poorest country = biggest gainer. Isn’t that what we are looking for?"
But Kimberly Ann Elliott, an economist at the Center on Global Development who studies the effects of trade policy on the global poor, says the issue is more complicated. Overall, she's neither strongly for nor strongly against TPP, and thinks its effects are likely to be small. But she also argues that supporters often exaggerate the benefits for developing countries, and that some of its effects will actually hurt the world's poorest people.
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