een countries privilege those countries while damaging others. True economic strength is increasingly associated with openness of markets and not with bilateral trade agreements that inhibit openness. Even multilateral trade regimes -- such as those of the European Union, the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA), and South America's MERCOSUR -- are not examples of meaningful "free trade." Such alliances may be beneficial on a regional basis, and may promote inter-regional economic development, but they also inhibit global free trade. Countries such as China, which do not participate to the degree desirable in free trade regimes and which represent major markets, must be brought into the free trade system (Legrain, 22).
Free trade may, in fact, be a simple necessity. The forces of globalization are extremely powerful and, if not precisely unstoppable, are at least quite resistant to a reduction in market openness (Legrain, 23). Protectionism has the ability to temporarily benefit selected industrial sectors in a country (such as th
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