Consider the following hypothetical story: Last spring, there was an outbreak of a nasty disease known as cyclosporiasis, which was eventually traced to Guatemalan raspberries. Together with some other incidents, this led to a demand for tougher controls on imported produce. A few weeks ago, the minister of trade and industry asked for legislation that would allow him to ban food imports from countries that do not follow adequate sanitary standards in agriculture. Intellectual opponents of globalization optimistically noted a double standard: We're willing to seize shipments of foreign berries to protect yuppie consumers (the sort of people who eat raspberries out of season) from inadequate foreign sanitary standards, but why aren't we willing to protect S.A. workers from inadequate foreign labor standards in China?
Do you support the minister of trade and industry's request or do you agree to the double standard argument by the intellectual opponents of globalization?