>What I find interesting is that many people are perfectly ok with exploiting a poorer neighbor, but they definitely should stay on their side of the dotted lin

>What I find interesting is that many people are perfectly ok with exploiting a poorer neighbor, but they definitely should stay on their side of the dotted line. How is having trade with a poorer neighbor country "exploitation"? Or when manufacturing plants move to the poorer nation? How is that exploitation? It's not good for the higher-paid workers who now are unemployed in the richer country, but it's good for the workers in the poor country who now have jobs which they apparently want because those plants do get staffed quickly. As for your equilibrium/osmosis analogy, what if that substance differs highly in concentration because there's fundamental differences between the two countries, and one of them is severely broken politically (the other one is too, just not as badly and not in the same way)? Until the fundamental problem in the poorer country is addressed, I don't see how you're going to ever achieve equilibrium unless it's to the severe disadvantage of the richer country (i.e., dragging them down). And the responsibility for fixing that is not with the richer country; doing that is generally called "imperialism" and not viewed positively these days.