Why or how does free trade lower labor standards?
Free trade is not in all kinds of produce, only in the produce where it costs less to import the goods than to make them in the home country. If the cost is lower when the goods are imported, then possibly the labor cost is less. (It might also be that the cost of using land or capital durable goods are less or any combination of the 3 production costs or returns for use of land , labor or durable capital.) In the case of the labor cost being less, the labor standard in both the foreign country and the home country too (when entrepreneurs try to compete with the imported goods), will be for reduced wages. If this is what you mean by “labor standards”, then free trade can result in lower standards by the above explanation. This may not be such a bad thing, because the lack of employment due to importing cheeper goods depends on how badly employers need labor and if they are willing to pay more for workers in jobs for which no foreign competition has stopped local production. The problem
