The assumption in such proposals is that trade liberalization will reduce migration - that trade is a substitute for migration. The results are ambiguous. Opening markets in the North and providing foreign investment and foreign aid to the sending countries is more likely to slow down migration from Eastern Europe to the European Union than from Africa to the European Union or from Latin America to the United States. It may also worsen the skill composition of migration from Africa to the European Union and from Latin America to the United States. Assuming migration externalities are not internalized, all groups are worse off under free migration than they are when migration is restricted.
All groups lose from imposing a tariff in the South or in the North.
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