Learning to Love the Status Quo

Across the board, but especially in progressive circles, trade policy issues tend to get incredibly contentious. In part, that's because of contention on the merits, but you also see a lot of heated disputes about the politics of trade deals. Under the circumstances, I was rather surprised to see this polling result in the DLC's report on the politics of globalization.

The country is very evenly divided on the question of trade agreements, but not in an especially "polarized" way. Instead, about thirty percent of the country wants to see existence agreements repealed, an equal number want to see new agreements signed and implemented, and a further thirty percent want to see the status quo maintained. Throw in the ten percent who "don't know" what they think, and you have a pretty overwhelming case that the smart political play is to . . . do nothing.

The good news for politicians is that doing nothing is extremely easy. Over and above the general ease of not doing things, the American political system has been specially designed to facilitate not doing things. Under the circumstances, you'd think people might find it in their hearts to get a little bit less worked-up on this topic, especially since the clearest substantive result on trade policy is that trade policy doesn't matter nearly as much as people tend to think.

Comments

[T]he American political system has been specially designed to facilitate not doing things.

Designed to frustrate doing things, even.

Posted by dj moonbat | December 23, 2006 8:23 PM

I think trade policy matters, but in varied and conflicting ways. Some industries get hurt by freeing up trade, but other industries get hurt by protectionism. More and more of the American economy is either owned outright by non-American companies or is dependent on foreign-made components and/or customers. Certain places with declining industries [the steel-and-auto Midwest, the Piedmont textile Belt, much of rural America] are unambiguously hurt by freer trade, but lots of other workers know that they're *dependent* on it. BTW--There's a downside to "doing nothing": namely, doing nothing to help those hurt by existing agreements. Regardless of whether we go in the direction of freer trade or protectionism, dealing with the adverse consequences of trade is not only the responsible thing for Democrats to do, but [given their historic relationship to working-class America] the Democratic thing to do.

Posted by David | December 23, 2006 8:27 PM

Note the absence of choice five: reform existing trade agreements so they're more fair to workers and small business and small farmers at home and abroad, and enact new trade agreements that are more fair to workers and small business and small farmers at home and abroad.

Posted by Linus | December 23, 2006 10:13 PM

"Do you believe increased trade between the United States and other countries mostly helps or mostly hurts American workers?"

.

Helps Hurts Unsure
% % %
4/7-9/06 30 65 6
11/18-21/99 35 59 6
.

"Do you believe increased trade between the United States and other countries mostly helps or mostly hurts American companies?"

.

Helps Hurts Unsure
% % %
4/7-9/06 44 50 6
11/18-21/99 56 39 5

LA Times/Bloomberg

"Negotiating new trade agreements" can mean all sorts of things. Fair traders probably would have agreed with that thinking it meant something else entirely. It's poorly worded and probably intentionally so.

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 23, 2006 10:45 PM

And maybe this is just me being a misanthropic asshole, but I'd lay down whatever I had in my pocket that 95% of "maintain current trade agreement" couldn't name a single one. It just sounds reasonable.

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 23, 2006 10:47 PM

I went and read the DLC extrapolation of their "data". I feel dumber for having done so. They are just embarassing. If you took the dough away from preaching their sermons they couldn't compete with Socialist Equity Party for filling seats or printing pamphlets.

Posted by Ed Marshall | December 24, 2006 12:10 AM

My understanding is that this issue is something like gun control. Most people think guns should be regulated fairly heavily, but the folks who disagree are willing to vote on that issue and that issue alone, so of course guns aren't regulated well.

Similarly, the free-trade advocates willing to vote on that issue alone are non-existent, whereas everyone who's lost an industrial job in the last decade is very happy to make repealing trade deals their single issue. The result is that the issue is very, very important in the states where a majority of people want to repeal agreements (Ohio), and in most of the country where most people want more agreements or don't care... well, they don't care.

Posted by Sam L. | December 24, 2006 1:10 AM

Umm, OK so if the political landscape suggest we do nothing, how come we've negotiated and approved, just in the last few years, trade deals with Chile, Oman and Singapore with votes on new trade deals with Russia and Vietnam (that one lost last month but will get another vote) on deck?

The 30% that wants more trade deals runs the show. Of course its the WTO that is the punisher, free trade with Oman won't have much effect on our economy, but there's not much we can do to stem our trade deficit that won't automatically run afoul of WTO rules.

Posted by beowulf | December 24, 2006 2:20 AM

Does maintain current trade agreements mean sticking with the WTO and its in-built cycle of new agreements? or sticking with the WTO and rejecting its in-built cycle of new agreements?

Posted by otto | December 24, 2006 4:21 AM

Trust me, a lot more than 10% of the public "Don't Know."

We now know that large fractions of the DC governing elite don't know whether Al Qaeda is Sunni or Shi'ite. What portion of the general public do you think has a clue what the WTO is?

Posted by Steve Sailer | December 24, 2006 4:59 AM

What exactly would be the combined populations of Chile, Oman and Singapore? It isn't exactly like we're passing free trade agreements these days with India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Japan and so forth. While I'm pro-free trade (as long as a free trade agreement doesn't use "free trade" in an Orwellian sense like parts of CAFTA), I doubt we would pass a free trade agreement with China under either party. It's going to be hard enough passing the ones with Peru and Vietnam.

Posted by Reality Man | December 24, 2006 5:33 AM

Speaking of Peru, I truly have no head for investing, I was in Lima earlier this year and could plainly see it was booming, thanks to high commodity prices.

A Peter Lynch type fellow would think, that's a clue! Naturally I did not. Just read today that Peru has the hottest stock market in the world, up 182% for the year.

Incidentally, its crazy how much the geography of coastal Peru resembles California. If you fly in during the day it looks JUST like the Los Angeles basin--- with the mountains, desert valley and Pacific coastline, only thing missing is the Hollywood sign. Its only when you're ready to land do you notice there isn't nearly as much irrigated greenery and see the dilapidated slums near the airport.

Posted by beowulf | December 25, 2006 1:39 AM

This post is foolish. First of all trade policy matters less in domestic issues, but in terms of foreign issues it is the elephant in the room.

Let's give a little background. Free trade agreements are the idea that two countries or a group of countries should have tariffless trade between each other. The understanding of tariffs among most people is flawed, because 90% of tariffs are not levied on domestic companies or corporations, but multinationals trading between different corporate branches. Tariffs are essentially a tax on large multinationals- the only real one there is, what with all the tax shelters. Tariffs are levied by countries for the most part not as protectionist aspects, but to preserve a multifaceted domestic economy, especially in the agricultural area.

So when poor countries pass free trade agreements with the United States what usually happens is a massive loss of agricultural labor, because tariffless US grain floods their domestic market. The grain is so cheap not only because it is overproduced in the United States, but also because it is subsidized and industrialized in the United States. This puts a good portion of the agrarian industry out of the poor business, and also makes it so there is a transitioning from subsistence farming to "inedible" cash crops- like coffee, cacao, tropical fruits, etc. This makes it so the country becomes completely dependent on the fluctuations of the international market, which can cause huge depressions and widespread starvations. (When the coffee prices in Nicaragua crashed in 2001, hundreds of thousands of poor campesino families were veritably starving).

Not only this, but in countries where AIDS and other diseases are a problem, free trade agreements create new standards for intellectual property- especially in the area of drugs. This means that many drugs that were previously available as generics in those countries, afterwards they are only available directly from the drug company, which sometimes increases prices by more than 500%.

Free trade agreements are also interpreted and enforced by completely unaccountable courts and organizations that do not release the names of their judges or records of the court proceedings- often times not even to the people who who are directly involved with the case.

Posted by Matt Cunningham-Cook | December 25, 2006 11:16 AM

It's a "do you love free puppies for all" poll.

I mean, I'm for ALL new trade agreements with every single country in the world, either bilateral or multilateral. But they would have to be fair trade agreements pushing workers rights and environmental protection. That puts me in the "new trade agreements" bracket, but that isn't exactly what they suggest people in that bracket want.

My guess is that there is about a 10% "yay NAFTA!" group that is very powerful (financial types, business types), about a 20% "boooo free trade" group that includes dirty fucking hippies and a lot of blue collar folks... and about 70% that goes "waaaa?"

Posted by Dan | December 26, 2006 2:49 PM