What does "fair trade" mean? You won't find one single answer. Here we look at the market profile of fair trade - the players, controversies, benefits and drawbacks.Fair trade in international commerce has two distinct meanings. In trade negotiations, the term is used broadly to argue that subsidies and disguised barriers skew the global trade system against developing countries and commodity producers. Former World Bank chief economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, for example, argues for "fair trade for all" in the context of the latest WTO round of trade liberalization, the Doha Development Agenda.