In countries whose inhabitants are free to trade, the poor generally have far greater opportunity to work and earn the money that will lift them out of poverty. As a result, in such countries a much smaller proportion of people live in absolute poverty than in countries that impose restrictions on trade. 

• In the past twenty years, over 400 million people have escaped from poverty in China, in large part as a result of their government's unilateral removal of barriers to trade.
• Tens of millions of people in India have escaped from poverty as a result of the removal of barriers to trade and investment.
• Meanwhile, the number of people living in absolute poverty in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Cuba has increased -- as a result of existing and new barriers to trade (both internal and external).