"free and fair for all"

Editor,

The NYT reported in "Obama, Vague on Issues, Pleases Crowds in Europe" (7/25/2008) that the phrase "free and fair for all" when applied to so-called "free" trade denotes "veering" towards protectionism.

In fact the phrase "free and fair for all" reflects that consumers in countries in the global north enjoy products assembled by workers who are paid close to nothing in so-called "Free Trade Zones" in the global south.

The phrase "free and fair for all" recalls the prosperity that Europeans and Americans enjoyed for 200 years as a consequence of slave labor in the United States and elsewhere and which brave abolitionists fought to end despite the convenience of this arrangement for slave owners and consumers.