The Custom-House

Is the glass half empty or half full?

Marc Champion reports on the German Marshall Fund's new survey of U.S. and European attitudes towards globalization for the Wall Street Journal: Americans' Support for Free Trade Declines (Dec 6).  I provided some summary statistics yesterday: What Do U.S. Adults Think About Trade? (Dec 5).

I was pretty heartened by my initial reading of the results.  After all, the survey reports that 60% of the U.S. respondents say they want freer trade - and support among Democrats is right up there!  However Champion emphasizes a different set of facts.  He focuses on the lower support for trade in the U.S. than in the E.U., concerns among Amercians about job losses from trade, and declining U.S. support for trade.

Here's his summary of the facts about the survey results, leaving out some of his reports on commentary by interested parties:

What Do U.S. Adults Think About Trade?

This past September

• 52% of Americans had a favorable view of globalization
• 64% had a favorable opinion of international trade
• 48% had a favorable opinion of the WTO (still beating out those who had an unfavorable opinion, since 15% wouldn't or couldn't answer the question)
• 66% had a favorable opinion of providing development assistance to poor countries
• 69% had a favorable opinion of international trade with poor countries
• 53% had a favorable opinion of foreign countries investing in the U.S.
• 63% had a favorable opinion of deepening trade and investment with Europe
• 60% were in favor of freer trade (lower tariffs and trade barriers with foreign countries (to my surprise, party preference didn't matter much here - 60% of Democrats were in favor of freer trade, and 63% of Republicans; it was also interesting that support for freer trade tended to drop by age class, at least during working years - 71% of 18-24 year olds were in favor, but only 48% of the 58-64 year olds )
• 57% of Americans think freer trade costs more jobs than it creates. 

At least that's what the German Marshall Fund found in a phone survey of U.S. residents 18 and up.  It conducted similar surveys of six European countries as well.  The fund has been doing these surveys for several years and they do note erosion of U.S. support for trade. 

The results were just released: 2007 Trade & Poverty Survey Results Now Available.  The website has background materials, including a helpful 35 page summary report.  The Fund has provided very detailed summaries and and cross tabulations of the survey responses - the report on the U.S. survey runs to hundreds of pages.  It also comes in an Excel spreadsheet version.  There's a lot to study here, and the stats above are only a very small part of what is available. 

I haven't found a very good description of the methodology.  With all the effort the Fund put into this project that seems like an odd thing to forget.

The WTO's 2007 World Trade Report is out

The WTO released its fifth annual World Trade Report yesterday.  These reports describe recent developments in international trade and include surveys of special topics.

Senate Approves the Peru Agreement

The Senate approved the trade agreement with Peru, by a vote of 77 to 18, with 5 not voting.  Here is the tally: Vote Summary (ht Eyes on Trade). 

Todd Tucker live-blogged the floor debate and vote for Public Citizen's Eyes On Trade weblog.  He posted here and here.

These five Presidential candidates didn't vote:

Clinton's Use of Samuelson

In her interview with the Financial Times last Friday, Senator Clinton said,

We have benefited through most of the 20th century from trade. It has helped to raise American standards of living, it has helped to create jobs. And I agree with Paul Samuelson, the very famous economist, who has recently spoken and written about how comparative advantage as it is classically understood may not be descriptive of the 21st century economy in which we find ourselves.

Romney's Enthusiasm for Trade and Reservations about the WTO

Simon Lester examines some recent remarks that raises specific concerns about the WTO:  Mitt Romney on the WTO (International Economic Law and Policy Blog, Dec 3).  Lester focuses on Romney's specific policy proposals. 

Romney prefaced his comments on the WTO with the following more general statement:

And the other [based on the question, the "other" thing is a key to innovation - Ben] is keeping our markets open. That's something which a lot of people fear, but if we are vigilant in protecting a level playing field, we not only can compete with the rest of the world, we have to compete with the rest of the world. The option of saying, "We can't compete, we're too expensive, so let's put up protective barriers," that would virtually assure that we go the way of the Soviet Union, that we get outcompeted by other people and become a second-tier economy. And if we became a second-tier economy, we would become a second-tier military. You really have no choice but to compete with the world.

What Clinton Said to the Financial Times

Edward Luce, the Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times interviewed Hillary Clinton in Washington on Friday (Nov 30) and published the transcript in today's paper: Full transcript: Hillary Clinton interview.

Here's a summary of her remarks on trade and related issues: