Essay 1:

Write a 300 word essay on the following topic:

Present a written argument to answer the following question:
Do you agree that free trade makes rich countries richer and poor countries poorer?
Use some trade theories to support your argument

From late 20th Century, globalization has become a term that every country has concern
about. Globalization helps improve productivity which create higher quality products
with more reasonable price. However, beside its advantages, free trade also brings about
disadvantages one of which is that the gap in income between the poor and the rich
countries have continued to widen. There are also arguments about whether only the
more developed countries gain from free trade. About this, in my opinion, everything has
its both sides. It is true that the more developed countries gain more from trade than the
less developed countries but on the other hand, the less developed ones also have
numerous chances opening to develop their economies

Firstly, the idea that only more developed countries gain from free trade is not correct.
Free trade is an open market where countries sell the products that are abundant and
purchase goods they can not produce or can not produce with the same price and quality
offered by other countries. According to absolute advantage theory, a nation has the
ability to produce a good more efficiently than any other nations. In the case of India,
Indian IT engineers can provide IT supporting service with lower cost than the rest of the
world. German manufacturing firms have technology which enable them to manufacture
high quality machines. Consequently, each nation has its absolute advantage to compete
in global market, not the more developed countries only. Moreover, comparative
advantage theory points out that countries also can specialize in a target good that they
have resources to produce better than other goods, due to which every economy can take
take all advantages of their resources. India specializes in outsourcing IT support
services, and Germany focuses on machinery industry. Then the global productivity is
raised and global citizens can use better goods with lower prices than before.

But in other aspect, the less developed countries are facing more difficulties in free trade
than the more developed countries. Their low technology and unimproved infrastructure
unable them to produce goods in the same volume and quality as the developed
economies who have great competencies. Their export structure is mainly depend on
primary commodities. They export low price commodities such as agriculture products,
raw materials which then will become the input for modern factories in developed
countries and import finished product with much higher price which leads to their Term
of Trade is always below 1. And some less developed country where they do not have
natural resources, the labour force even has to do the low-paid the outsourcing. Free trade
means all countries reduce the protectionism which can threat the domestic infant
industries.

In conclusion, even when inequality is widening within and across nation, both poor and
rich countries gain and loss in free trade. But governments have been making great
efforts to reduce the gap in economic performance between the poor and the rich
countries.