The problem, from the content creators' perspective, is the enforcement of copyright law varies so widely. In some countries it's draconian, in others virtually nonexistent. My impression is ACTA was really introduced to, well, make it draconian everywhere.

I'm not sure how this makes sense for countries that consume more foreign content than they sell locally produced content in foreign markets.

I don't quite follow the reasoning. Wouldn't it make more sense to make legit media consumption easier in countries with lax copyright enforcement and widespread infringement?

Not if they think they can force those countries to tighten enforcement. I think these companies believe if they could just remove all the torrents from the web they'd get a sale for each torrent they stopped, whereas just making legit sales available will only capture a small portion of the potential market.

I seriously doubt that's the case, but it might make sense for them to go this way - the money they spend buying politicians isn't much in the great scheme of things. It might even be cheaper than setting up an efficient worldwide distribution system.

Yes it would — except, apparently, under Hollywood logic.