U.S. support for trade ties lags
Americans are trading more in the global economy and liking it less, according to a worldwide attitude survey released Thursday by a Washington think tank.
Only 59% of Americans termed “growing trade ties between countries” as “very good” or “somewhat good.
That’s lower than in any other nation, rich or poor, according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes poll of 45,000 people in 47 nations on five continents.
Americans, along with most other countries surveyed, also said they favored more restrictions on immigration.
U.S. residents’ lackluster support for world trade contrasts with the strong enthusiasm of respondents in the booming, emerging economies of China and India.
About 9 in 10 favored more trade and said they benefited from free markets and investments by foreign companies. Those upbeat sentiments, surprisingly, were mirrored by residents of some of the world’s poorest countries in Africa.
“The biggest conclusion is for the most part people around the world embrace global trade and embrace capitalism,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. “People in emerging nations and middle-income countries are happier with their lives, more satisfied with the income gains related to growth in their gross domestic products.”
Economic growth in the United States and in parts of Western Europe has been far slower than in Latin America, Eastern Europe or much of Asia, Kohut noted.
People in Venezuela and other Latin American countries that in recent years elected leftist, anti-American governments showed more zeal for international trade than U.S. citizens, the Pew report said.
Many of those countries have increased their export revenues with the sale of oil, copper, soybeans and other commodities in great demand with buyers in China and India.
“A rising tide is lifting the mood in many countries,” Kohut said. “They’re balking at Washington but not at capitalism.”
Despite the gaps in growth between developed and developing countries, people in the United States and many other nations share a common concern, the Pew report said. In most countries, people said they worried that increased immigration and the free flow of ideas and resources -- spurred by trade -- could loosen national cultural and identity bonds.
Majorities of people Pew surveyed in 39 of 47 countries said they supported more control of immigration. Respondents in some poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as South Africa, the Ivory Coast and Senegal, overwhelmingly backed restrictions to keep people from neighboring countries that are even poorer from competing for jobs and sometimes scarce resources.
“Labor all over the world simply has become more mobile, causing fear of immigration in Europe and the U.S.,” said Steve Cochrane, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa., financial consulting firm.
“There’s a cultural clash, a feeling that our jobs are being taken. Any time there’s a misunderstanding between cultures and a very rapid change, you create” xenophobia, Cochrane said.
But what’s getting lost in the U.S. debate over globalization and trade is that “the country as a whole gets tremendous benefits” when a consumer can buy lower-cost goods from another country, said Perry Wong, senior managing economist for the Milken Institute in Santa Monica.
What’s more, he said, immigration, especially by engineers from India, Taiwan, South Korea and China, has been a big plus for the U.S. economy. “You cannot measure it in billions,” he said. “It’s likely a higher number, trillions.”
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