International trade agreements have profound implications for animal welfare — potentially undermining domestic welfare standards through import competition from lower-welfare production systems.
Trade policy is welfare policy — import competition from lower-welfare systems creates economic pressure on domestic producers to lower their standards. An animal welfare ban in the UK on a practice like sow gestation crates is partially undermined if pork produced using gestation crates can be freely imported. Welfare-consistent trade policy requires either equivalence requirements for imports or welfare import levies that internalize the cost difference of lower-welfare production.