Yes trade can help lift people out of poverty. But in order to do so there needs to be the right conditions; there needs to be infrastructure, an educated and healthy population, and of course the country must be able to feed itself. No country is going to be able to trade its way to growth if its goods cannot reach international markets. Freer trade has not obviously been a driver of growth; poverty has fallen while the Doha round of trade liberalisation has got nowhere. [1] Instead the policies that have succeeded for China have been mercantilist policies, China may rely on trade to export its goods but it succeeded in creating its manufacturing capacity because of currency manipulation and government subsidies, things that anyone for free trade would be against. [2]  [1] Chandy, Laurence, and Gertz, Geoffrey, ‘With Little Notice, Globalization Reduced Poverty’, YaleGlobal, 5 July 2011.  [2] Prestowitz, Clyde, ‘China’s not breaking the rules. It’s playing a different game.’, Foreign Policy, 17 February 2012.