The international trading system should ensure that inequalities of economic power do not influence the trade disputes. But as with a judge in court, the international trading rules cannot decide what those societal rules and political standards should be. Each society has to arrive at a consensus on rules by which it wants to live. Countries and, more importantly, the people in those countries benefit from free trade. They don't benefit when special interests unrelated to trade are brought into the negotiations and given semi-official or even official roles.
Consumers are the ones who stand to lose.
The importance of free trade for consumers world-wide is hard to overstate. Consumers in industrial countries may take the availability of these products for granted, but in other parts of the world, it is a daily uncertainty Instead of asking too much from trade negotiators, as well as promising benefits to each and everyone, the Administration should engage in a more open and honest debate with the American public on why an open trade system is so essential for the U.S. economy as much as it is for the rest of the world.