Daniel Ikenson of the Cato Institute read the report on the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll of likely Republican primary voters (59% of whom felt foreign trade had been bad for the U.S.) and found the poll wanting: Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and a Media Happy to Abuse Them (Cato Online, Oct 4). He thinks the questions were badly phrased. Here's a correction that doesn't affect his key point: Correction to Yesterday’s Post, (Lies, Damn Lies,…) (Cato Online, Oct 5).
Here's my post on those poll results: Republican Primary Voter Trade Views (Ben Muse, Oct 6)
The WSJ/NBC poll results weren't the only ones released last week. The Pew Research Center also released a set of poll results with some information on U.S. trade attitudes. Ikenson reported on these as well: How Do Americans Really Feel about Trade? (Cato Online, Oct 5). Here we find that 64% of Republicans think trade has been a good thing for the U.S.
Ikenson thinks the reason for the difference may lie in the phrasing of the questions.
The Pew poll results, however, are no reason for satisfaction:
Two figures that appear to be credible from the Pew report are a bit disconcerting. The same question asked of Americans was also asked of citizens in 46 other countries. Positive views of trade were lowest in the United States. And the 59% holding positive views constitutes a huge drop off from 2002, when the same question from Pew found 78% of Americans holding positive views on trade.
It is true that U.S. trade commitments to lower tariffs and other trade barriers have exposed some of America's producers to foreign competition, and in some cases even driving them out of the marketplace.
Posted by: r4 karte | February 12, 2010 at 10:28 PM