Home
Archive
Columnists
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Register to Vote: Rock the Vote, powered by Working Assets Wireless
  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

ForeignPolicy

Poll: Americans Don't Like Our Current Trade Policy

By Holly Shulman, Eyes on Trade. Posted May 5, 2008.


As people's economic pain grows, their trust in U.S. trade policy shrinks.

The Wall Street Journal reported on a new pollfrom the Pew Research Center that finds a majority of Americans oppose our status quo trade agreements, like NAFTA, WTO and the Peru FTA.

The poll shows,

  • 48% said that free-trade agreements are a bad thing for the country, compared with 35% of the public who call them a good thing. This is up from an even 40%-40% split in November 2007 and from July 2004 when the results were reversed with 47% of respondents calling free-trade agreements positive, and 34% calling them negative.

  • 48% of respondents said that free-trade agreements are having a negative impact on their personal financial situations, compared with just 27% who say it has helped.
  • 52% of independents had a negative view of free-trade, compared to 50% of Democrats and 43% of Republicans.

The poll points out what many observers already know. From the first presidential contest in Iowa to early state battles in South Carolina and Wisconsin to Tuesday's approaching primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, trade has and continues to play a dominant role. This follows a 2006 election when 37 congressional challengers calling for a change to our status quo trade policies replaced NAFTA-supporting incumbents.


Digg!

See more stories tagged with: public opinion, trade

Holly Shulman is the press officer at Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.



Advertisement

 

Comments Turn comments off sitewide Give us feedback »
Comments closed.
The comments for this story have been closed. Thank you to everyone who participated.
View:
Our Current Trade Policy is Destroying Us ...
Posted by: mmckinl on May 5, 2008 5:56 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We had an 800 Billion dollar trade deficit last year. This is not just unsustainable, it is a disaster for our currency and our position in the world.

Our trade policy is also a disaster for other countries. The neoliberal model of corporatization of any and all assets at home and abroad has created two distinct classes. The losers; the poor, working class and middle class around the world , the winners; the transnational corporations and the world's oligarchs. We already see the food crisis gaining momentum as transnational corporations the likes of ADM, Monsanto and Cargil tally up 100% profit increases.

We have a decision to make. Get rid of the WTO, GATT, NAFTA and all the other so called free trade deals and apply tariffs to protect our industry and markets or carry on as usual and watch our productive economy disappear and real jobs along with it.

The choice is; business as usual with higher prices, fewer jobs, a shrinking tax base and a debased currency, or ; Tariffs that will cause higher prices but, protect jobs, relocate jobs home, create tax revenue, increase our tax base and stabilize our dollar.

Economists that insist a lower dollar will shrink our trade deficit don't take into account that exporting countries will dump product, manipulate their currencies, pollute, lower wages and stifle our exports through market manipulation. We will never get to a trade equilibrium through currency devaluation because by the time is has happened we will in essence have nothing to trade that will come close to the costs of our needed imports of energy and household goods.

We have been suckered by the "Free Traders" into trading away our sovereignty to transnational corporations and their plutocratic owners.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]