How people think about trade
Matt Yglesias peruses the polling questins about trade and doesn’t like the fact that people are asked which country benefits more from trade integration: That’s just a terrible way of looking at the situation. My read of the way the world works is that the United States has a much larger economy than do most ...
Matt Yglesias peruses the polling questins about trade and doesn't like the fact that people are asked which country benefits more from trade integration: That's just a terrible way of looking at the situation. My read of the way the world works is that the United States has a much larger economy than do most countries.... Consequently, I'd say that other countries benefit more from trade than the United States does. If the world ever shifts to autarky, that'll suck for everyone, but it'll suck less for us than it does for, say, tiny subarctic Iceland. But that's not me having a "negative attitude" about international trade. But in Public Agenda's conception of how trade works, it seems to be a zero-sum activity such that if some other country benefits more from trade than we do, then we're getting ripped off. Matt is correct on the logic but wrong about how people actually think about this question. Let's extract from "The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion," shall we? Experimental survey results confirm the strong bias in favor of relative gains concern among the mass public of Americans.... Richard Herrmann, Philip Tetlock and Matthew Diascro asked whether respondents would support a foreign economic policy that benefited the United States more than its trading partner, benefited both countries equally, or benefited the trading partner more (in all cases, both countries received positive benefits). Among the mass sample, the distribution of gains significantly affected responses. 64% of Americans supported a policy that benefited the United States more; when the partner benefited more, support fell to 38%. Mass responses were also more protectionist when the trading partner was described as either wealthy or strong. Using real world countries, respondents were more likely to favor restricting trade against Japan than either England or India. Herrmann, Tetlock and Diascro conclude, “A larger percentage of the general public than of the elite think about trade as if they were intuitive neorealists…. And more of them are sensitive to the factors neorealists say should affect policy calculations.” David Rousseau conducted a similar survey, and found majorities opposing trade agreements that resulted in small economic gains for the United States but significant economic gains by other major powers. Americans, on the whole, do not like trade arrangements in which they feel that partner countries benefit more. It doesn't make a lot of economic sense, but there it is.
Matt Yglesias peruses the polling questins about trade and doesn’t like the fact that people are asked which country benefits more from trade integration: That’s just a terrible way of looking at the situation. My read of the way the world works is that the United States has a much larger economy than do most countries….
Consequently, I’d say that other countries benefit more from trade than the United States does. If the world ever shifts to autarky, that’ll suck for everyone, but it’ll suck less for us than it does for, say, tiny subarctic Iceland.
But that’s not me having a “negative attitude” about international trade. But in Public Agenda’s conception of how trade works, it seems to be a zero-sum activity such that if some other country benefits more from trade than we do, then we’re getting ripped off.
Matt is correct on the logic but wrong about how people actually think about this question. Let’s extract from “The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion,” shall we?
Experimental survey results confirm the strong bias in favor of relative gains concern among the mass public of Americans…. Richard Herrmann, Philip Tetlock and Matthew Diascro asked whether respondents would support a foreign economic policy that benefited the United States more than its trading partner, benefited both countries equally, or benefited the trading partner more (in all cases, both countries received positive benefits). Among the mass sample, the distribution of gains significantly affected responses. 64% of Americans supported a policy that benefited the United States more; when the partner benefited more, support fell to 38%. Mass responses were also more protectionist when the trading partner was described as either wealthy or strong. Using real world countries, respondents were more likely to favor restricting trade against Japan than either England or India. Herrmann, Tetlock and Diascro conclude, “A larger percentage of the general public than of the elite think about trade as if they were intuitive neorealists…. And more of them are sensitive to the factors neorealists say should affect policy calculations.” David Rousseau conducted a similar survey, and found majorities opposing trade agreements that resulted in small economic gains for the United States but significant economic gains by other major powers.
Americans, on the whole, do not like trade arrangements in which they feel that partner countries benefit more. It doesn’t make a lot of economic sense, but there it is.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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