[philwelch]

"What we could do is make trade contingent on a base level of standards being met."

That's exactly what Apple does, and that's exactly why you're reading this story about Apple, instead of Asus or Lenovo or any other company--because Apple, unlike almost every other company, does the audits and enforces the standards on their contractors.

[yequalsx]

After rereading the article and reading the comments on this thread I'm inclined to agree with you as far as it pertains to Apple. The overall point I made applies though. Not necessarily to Apple itself but to behavior of Western companies in general.