Although free trade has so many benefits, there are a number of disadvantages of free trade.
First of all is unemployment. Free trade can impact on large numbers of workers. Because of free trade, unemployment levels in rich countries may be higher than poor countries.
Second is decrease domestic economic stability. This means that business, industry, market, employees and consumers are more vulnerable to go down in the economies of our trading partners. For example, the foreign company imported goods are cheaper than same goods made by domestic suppliers and local manufactures, so they have to compete with imported goods.
Next is unfair. Developing or infant industry may establish it difficult to become placed in a competitive market without any short-term protection and supporting policies by governments. It’s hard to develop economies of scale in front of competition from huge and strong TNCs.
Moreover, free trade can cause to pollution, working conditions, technology, education. People’s living standard may be improved but the problem of the environment is very serious. The increase of corporate companies in developing countries increases building factories and energy use and they ignore costly environment standards. In addition, because of competition between companies, they reduce or remove the cost of environmental protection.
Finally, free trade widens the gap between rich and poor nations. Free trade helps transfer technology from developed countries to developing and infant countries, so rich nations take advantages of that and cheap labor to develop their business, while poor nations must take a while to use this technology.
Above is some of disadvantages of free trade. However, no one can deny the importance of the free trade in developing countries.