KR: Is trade THE driver of economic inequality? Isn’t the gap between rich and poor driven more by other factors including tax regimes that benefit the rich, poor enforcement of anti-trust laws, systemic racism and a profound lack of quality housing, health and education for many Americans?

LW: Since 1941 standard economic theory has held that trade liberalization is likely to contribute to greater income inequality in developed countries like the United States. See eg. Wolfgang F. Stolper and Paul A. Samuelson, “Protection and Real Wages” in The Review of Economic Studies from November 1941. But I am a lawyer, not an economist, so on the economics I defer to Stolper and Samuelson on the theory and Professor Stiglitz and other economists on how the actual outcomes have increased inequality. As a lawyer, I am focused on the actual rules and must repeat that the generic concept of “trade” is not operationalized but rather there are enforceable rules for global commerce in effect today via “trade” agreements that do have measurable outcomes. And as I noted above, many of these agreements were rigged by special interests to include terms that benefit them often to the detriment of most of us living with the results. The specific rules have increased inequality is very measurable ways. When the WTO required the United States to extend its patent term from 17 years to 20 years, which meant higher prices for medicines for all Americans and for government-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid, after decades of consumer activism stopping that change, that is just one of many examples of specific trade-agreement terms shifting wealth aware from consumers and to special interests.