The rich countries lecturing poor ones on free trade got rich by ignoring it themselves

In Kicking Away the Ladder, economist Ha-Joon Chang combed through the economic history of Britain, the US and other now-wealthy nations and found that virtually all of them used tariffs, subsidies and outright protection of their own infant industries while developing. Only once they'd become dominant did they promote free trade to the rest of the world. Chang argued this amounts to 'kicking away the ladder' they themselves climbed, denying developing countries today the same tools.

— Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective — 2002
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