It's hard to get trade deals in the headlines these days. Democrats and Republicans alike have pushed through a series of bad trade deals in recent years, and while there's good reason to believe that voters oppose many aspects of those agreements, it doesn't seem to make much of a dent. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has said, the strategy for passing these deals seems to be hiding what's in them from voters, but "if transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States." Well, here's more reason for the crowd that wants to pass more bad-for-American-workers trade deals to keep the details of their plans secret. The Alliance for American Manufacturing has
released a poll finding—again—that people want to protect jobs.
- When asked: International trade agreements give Americans access to more foreign-made goods and products but at the risk of American manufacturing jobs being lost. What would you say is more important? Eighty-two percent believe manufacturing jobs are more important vs. 15 percent who choose foreign market access as priority. [...]
- When asked: Some foreign countries artificially keep their goods and products cheaper on the international market by manipulating their currency. How important is it to you that any international trade agreements negotiated by the United States have specific rules preventing currency manipulation? 62.3 percent believe it’s ‘very important’, 26.6 percent believe it’s ‘somewhat important.’ [...]
- When asked: If the Obama administration supports an international trade agreement that does not specifically prohibit currency manipulation, do you think the United States Congress should support or oppose that trade deal? A plurality of Democrats believe Congress should oppose such a deal—48 percent oppose, 41 percent support—while a majority of Republicans believe Congress should oppose a trade agreement without rules against currency manipulation—77 percent oppose, 17 percent support.
Of course, backers of bad trade deals never admit they're going to cost jobs. In fact, they always claim the deals will create jobs—but by now, we've seen enough of these to know that's false. And opponents of declaring other countries (China) to be currency manipulators would say it might jeopardize the U.S. relationship with those other countries (China) in problematic ways. Those voices, in fact, dominate our politics. They get the trade agreements passed without transparency. They go on TV and condescendingly explain that this is a global economy and in a global economy you
have to race to the bottom, or you might get left behind. (As if being left behind in a race to the bottom is automatically a terrible thing.)
Polls like this show the deep-seated reservations Americans have about the kind of trade agreements that usually get pushed through without much public input. But usually, regular people aren't asked about this—because they'd give answers politicians don't want to hear.