International Trade or Free Trade

Research Paper: International Trade (or Free Trade)

1.         A slight plurality of Americans opposed the idea of free trade, or the policies of promoting trade agreements with foreign countries. According to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey polling 400 Americans nationwide, 50% mentioned trade agreements has more drawbacks than benefits for the U.S. economy, whereas 42% mentioned the opposite. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll surveyed a similar question that out of 500 Americans polled nationwide, 48% considered opening trade markets as a “bad” situation, in contrast to 43% who considered as “good”. Based on these findings, a plurality of Americans are concerned that free trade would subject American companies to ship American jobs overseas, the notion of replacing American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Despite the idea that free trade would bolster American consumerism, job security has outweighed all of the benefits based on the conscience of the American public. More precisely, this indicates that the public are more in favor of restricting international trade agreements to preserve American jobs in the U.S.

Sources:

• CNBC. CNBC All-America Economic Survey, June, 2015 [survey question]. Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies [producer]. PollingReport.com [distributor], accessed Feb-20-2016.
• NBC News/Wall Street Journal. NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, April, 2014 [survey question]. Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies [producer]. PollingReport.com [distributor], accessed Feb-20-2016.

1.         The support for free trade has steadily increased between 2000 and 2015. According to the 2000 survey of the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, 34% of the American public responded that international trade is beneficial to the U.S. economy, along with 48% who mentioned the opposite. Compared to the two recent polls of the 2015 CNBC All-America Economic Survey and the 2014 The NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, a plurality of Americans remained opposed to free trade. Despite of this, the support for free trade continues to grow as the economy and the job markets in the U.S. experienced changes over time. Technology has also become an important factor that changed the climate of the job market as well. Since technology has dominated productivity and efficiency in the global economy, more Americans are shifting from labor and manufacturing jobs to employment in tech, finance, and service industries.^[1] This indicates that more Americans are becoming less concerned on job security based on the negative factors of free trade.

Sources:

•        NBC News/Wall Street Journal. NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, April/May 200 [survey question]. Peter Hart/Robert Teeter [producer]. PollingReport.com [distributor], accessed Feb-20-2016.

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