World Fair Trade Day 2024 is on Friday, May 10, 2024: How could World Trade be fairer?

Friday, May 10, 2024 is World Fair Trade Day 2024. The World Fair Trade OrganizationThe World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), formerly the International Federation of Alternative Traders ("IFAT"), was created in 1989 and is a global association of 324 organizations in over 70 countries.

The World Fair Trade OrganizationThe World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), formerly the International Federation of Alternative Traders ("IFAT"), was created in 1989 and is a global association of 324 organizations in over 70 countries.

Get rid of NAFTA and similar trade agreements and go back to the days when we could negotiate any trade agreement contingent on human rights. Reinstitute import tariffs to protect domestic production.

Why do we need Fair trade?

Fair Trade supports people in impoverished communities across the world who don't have many options for making a living. They create/grow goods that are sold for a decent wage which allows them to support themselves and not rely on humanitarian programs. It supports small local communities and often times supports the environment as well. An example would be fair trade coffee, the farmers grow the coffee beans in the shade of the natural trees promoting biodiversity and halting deforestation, while making enough money to support their families.

We don't "need" fair trade, if you prefer to keep buying your products from, say, WalMart and/or made in China where people work over 12 hours a day and make only pennies, you have that option still. But to support fair trade is to support your fellow human and recognize their basic rights as a human that they are not a form of slave labor who toil only to benefit the fat cats of corporations.

I hope I helped.

In the simplest terms, what is fair trade?

Fair trade is not an economic term. It simply means, in the opinion of the person using the term 'fair trade', that the price paid for goods or services should be different than the actual market price. For example, in the fashion world, people use the expression 'fair trade' to mean that the people overseas working in factories to make the clothing, should be paid more than they are paid.

The reason it's not an economic term is because there is no way of knowing, in any given case, what is the difference between the market price and the supposedly 'fair' price. For example, suppose someone in China gets a job in a clothing factory paying $5 a day. They are earning more than they could earn in their home village growing rice, but less than a factory worker in the USA. So fair trade advocates say "It's not fair."

Well firstly, it is fair, because the worker is getting a better deal than any other way of making a living available to them. They are choosing to do it because they benefiting from doing it, so they're not being exploited, and there's nothing unfair about it, even if other people in other places are earning more.

And because it is fair, that's why the fair trade advocates are unable to say what is the difference between the market price, and the so-called fair price. If it's not $5, why $5.50? Why not $10? Why not $63.47c? Why not $358.22?

The fact is, the market price is the fair price, and people who talk of fair trade should put their money where their mouth is.