$2 Daiso deals and cheaper groceries are the real dividends of free trade

Free trade needs a reframe. Keeping consumer markets competitive and affordable may be more effective than the traditional narrative of jobs and factories.

- Selena Ling

Free trade agreements (FTAs) are usually discussed in the language of gross domestic product and investment flows. But let us be honest: Most Singaporeans care less about export statistics than about how much they are paying at the cashier.

That is where trade deals are quietly showing up in $2 Daiso finds, affordable Decathlon gear and wallet-friendly Chinese food and beverage chains sprouting across malls in Singapore.

They may not feature in policy speeches, but they are shaping the cost of living more directly than we realise.

When national leaders and policymakers around the world talk about trade, they often highlight the “big stuff” - multinational companies setting up factories, new jobs, technology transfer and linkages with local small and medium-sized enterprises. These are real benefits and matter for long-term growth.

But for ordinary households, the impact is more immediate and visible in everyday spending. Trade deals do not just bring in factories and jobs. They bring in retailers, restaurants and supermarkets that compete head-on with incumbents, forcing prices down and keeping quality up. In a high-cost city like Singapore, that effect is far from trivial.

Now that 2025 has shaped up to be a year where US tariff levels have been lobbed left, right and centre, and trade fragmentation is increasingly a risk for the global economy, one only has to recall the pandemic days of mask, egg and toilet paper shortages to see the havoc that trade disruption can wreak on everyday life.

With Singapore being a trade-reliant nation, FTAs help diversify its trade links and reduce overreliance on any single partner. Today, Singapore has an extensive network of over 25 implemented FTAs.