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Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Free Trade Agreements Get a Mixed Review
51% Say U.S. Has Responsibility to "Do Something" in Darfur
The American public continues to have a mixed opinion about free trade agreements such as NAFTA and the WTO. On balance they are seen as a good thing for the country, but Americans are divided over the impact of free trade agreements on their own personal financial situations. About as many people think they are helped by them (35%) as believe they are hurt (36%).
Many Americans worry that free trade has had a negative effect on jobs and wages. Nearly half (48%) believe that free trade agreements lead to job losses in the U.S., while just 12% say that trade agreements have created jobs. A comparable number (44%) says that free trade has led to lower wages for American workers.
By contrast, there is less agreement that free trade has promoted economic growth or led to lower prices on products sold in the United States. Indeed, about as many people say that free trade agreements have raised prices on products as say that they have led to lower prices (30% vs. 32%).
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted among 1,502 adults from Dec. 6-10, finds that there is broad agreement about one group of beneficiaries from free trade agreements: Nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) say that free trade is good for the people of developing countries, compared with just 19% who say it does not make a difference and 9% who think that free trade agreements are bad for the publics of developing countries.
Views of free trade have long been divided along socioeconomic lines. People with low annual household incomes, and those with less education, are less likely than others to view free trade as beneficial, both for the country and themselves. There also are significant political differences: More Republicans than Democrats say that trade has been good for the United States (50% vs. 42%), and the gap is even larger in terms of the personal financial impact of trade. In addition, far more Republicans than Democrats say that free trade agreements lower the price on products sold in the United States (40% vs. 27%).
But Republicans and Democrats both see a negative impact of trade on wages and jobs. By a margin of 42%-14%, Republicans say that trade agreements lead to job losses rather than creating jobs; Democrats agree by an even wider margin (51%-10%). And Republicans by 42% to 11% say trade makes wages lower rather than higher; Democrats concur by 47%-11%.
The new survey also finds that isolationist sentiment among the public, which has risen dramatically in recent years because of the Iraq war, remains undiminished. Currently, 42% of Americans agree that the U.S. "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own"; 53% disagree with that statement. The percentage agreeing with this statement equals the number in October 2005, and is on par with measures of isolationist sentiment in the mid-1990s, in the wake of the Cold War, and in the mid-1970s after the Vietnam War.
While many Americans take a cautious view of the U.S. role in the world, about half (51%) say they believe that the United States has a responsibility to do something about the ethnic genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Roughly the same number (53%) favors the use of U.S. troops as part of a multinational force to end the ethnic genocide there.
By comparison, in March 1999 nearly half of Americans (47%) felt the U.S. had a responsibility to do something about the fighting between ethnic groups in the Serbian province of Kosovo. But during the Bosnian civil war in June 1995, far fewer just 30% believed the U.S. had a responsibility to do something about fighting between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia.