Pakistan's response to the WTO has been a schizophrenic blend of servile compliance, antagonistic rhetoric and general confusion. Proponents and opponents know not what they talk about.
Emma Duncan's book Breaking the Curfew portrays Pakistan as a nation that has ideas without any ideology, and ideologies without any idea. Pakistan's haphazard response to the challenges of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) only corroborates this assessment. The WTO has been described as a bicycle which collapses if it does not move forward. In Pakistan's case the bicycle is continuously moving in a circle with little sign of any forward movement. There is a lack of clear-cut vision on the WTO and most protagonists in the country are unclear about their positions on trade policy. Consequently, attitudes toward the WTO in different quarters are motivated almost entirely by ideological considerations, leading to a near-universal failure in understanding what the organisation really means and what its real and potential implications are.
There are two broad schools of thought in Pakistan about the impact of different WTO agreements on the country. One group uncritically propagates these agreements as the panacea for every ill that plagues the country. The argument here is that free trade will have a strong positive effect in creating the conditions for reducing poverty through enhanced direct and indirect employment opportunities, social welfare services and infrastructure, which can potentially benefit the poor. This is a restatement of the "trickle down" hypothesis of one strand of development economics, formulated decades ago, enjoying revived respectability in recent years. The most notable proponents of this view are government officials and representatives of the international lending agencies. The position within the government is not the result of any well-considered debate however. It is a position of convenience, since government departments find this approach the easiest way to obtain grants from international donors, who as a rule like to hear pro-WTO platitudes.
The opposing view sees the WTO as a curse and attributes every malady of the developing world to WTO agreements. The WTO is seen as a rich man's club, designed to exploit the developing world in the interests of the developed world. Most civil society organisations and anti-globalisation activists are partisans of this view. And since America is perceived to be a symbol and driving force of globalisation, the WTO also attracts criticisms from the strong anti-American lobby in Pakistan.