… is from page 63 of the late, great Manuel Ayau’s excellent 2007 monograph, Not a Zero-Sum Game:
For a country, looking to prosper, the best option is to open trade unilaterally; to remove an economic weight from the back of its own people.
Meanwhile, as a second-best option, politicians should pitch free trade agreements as more than just a way to open export markets for domestic producers, which they indeed do. They should also showcase them as a way to lower the costs of goods and services to consumers, and as a means to increase the competition to local producers.