Along with the advantages, customs unions also come with a few drawbacks:

Free trade increases prosperity for Americans—and the citizens of all participating nations—by allowing consumers to buy more, better-quality products at lower costs. It drives economic growth, enhanced efficiency, increased innovation, and the greater fairness that accompanies a rules-based system.

A free trade agreement is a pact between two or more nations to reduce barriers to imports and exports among them. Under a free trade policy, goods and services can be bought and sold across international borders with little or no government tariffs, quotas, subsidies, or prohibitions to inhibit their exchange.

• Loss of economic sovereignty. Members of a customs union are required to negotiate with non-member countries and organizations such as the WTO.
• Distribution of tariff revenues.
• Complexity of setting the tariff rate.

Criticisms of WTO

• Free Trade benefits developed countries more than developing countries.
• Most favoured nation principle.
• Failure to reduce tariffs on agriculture.
• Diversification.
• Environment.
• Free trade ignores cultural and social factors.
• The WTO is criticised for being undemocratic.
• Slow progress.

According to the analysis, nations with strong exports and production are the main beneficiaries of membership. This is true for Germany and South Korea (around USD 31 billion in GDP growth) as industrial and innovation locations, but also for Mexico (around USD 58 billion in GDP growth) and China.

Yet several criticisms of the WTO have arisen over time from a range of fields, including economists such as Dani Rodrik and Ha Joon Chang, and anthropologists such as Marc Edelman, who have argued that the institution “only serves the interests of multinational corporations, undermines local development, penalizes …

However, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, all three of the organization’s functions – providing a negotiation forum to liberalize trade and establish new rules, monitoring trade policies, and resolving disputes between its 164 members are facing challenges.

The book describes the WTO’s achievements across a number of key areas, including: strengthening the institutional foundations of the trade system; widening its membership and increasing participation; deepening trade integration through lower barriers and stronger rules; improving transparency and policy dialogue; …

Until now, with domestic support measures like MSP, India has been carefully treading the thin line between food and livelihood security and practices classified as “trade distorting” under the WTO law.

159 countries

The WTO is run by its member governments. All major decisions are made by the membership as a whole, either by ministers (who meet at least once every two years) or by their ambassadors or delegates (who meet regularly in Geneva). Decisions are normally taken by consensus.

World Trade Organization