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Trade: Westerners like the idea but not
the practice
By Jim
Lobe
WASHINGTON - Most US and Western European
citizens strongly back the concept of more international
trade, but show a lot less support for specific trade
agreements and mechanisms, according to a major new
survey on aid and trade by the German Marshall Fund of
the United States.
The survey, released Tuesday,
which polled opinion in the United States, the United
Kingdom, France and Germany, found significant
differences on some issues between the US and European
respondents.
US citizens, for example, were
found to be less supportive of official development
assistance (ODA) as a way of fighting global poverty,
less supportive of negotiating new trade agreements, and
more inclined to support protection for the US cotton
industry and patents on life-saving drugs than their
European counterparts, according to the survey, which
was based on interviews carried out in May with about
1,000 respondents in each country.
But on most
issues, Americans appeared more or less in tune with
their European cousins, suggesting that, unlike in the
foreign-policy area, there appears to be a general
consensus on issues of trade and aid in Western
countries.
Respondents also seemed to share a
common belief that multinational companies benefit
significantly more from international trade than small
businesses or "ordinary people", although those views
were significantly more pronounced in France (where 65%
said multinationals were the biggest beneficiaries) than
in the UK (43%).
The survey, which comes as
Western negotiators are trying hard to get World Trade
Organization (WTO) Doha Round negotiations back on
track, appears designed in part to determine which
messages would be most effective in rallying Western
public opinion to provide greater support for new trade
deals.
It found overwhelming support in all four
countries for appeals based on recognizing public
concerns and worries about the negative effects of
international trade, as well as extolling its
advantages.
"Survey responses suggest that
policymakers have an opportunity to broaden support for
new trade agreements if they address trade pessimists'
concerns regarding workers, the environment,
transparency and developing countries," according to a
30-page analysis that accompanied the poll.
"Only if opinion leaders seek substantive rather
than superficial solutions to assuage public uncertainty
can we move to a real discussion of the future direction
of trade policy," it added.
One of the clearest
findings of the survey, called "Reconciling Trade and
Poverty Reduction", is that the public in both the
United States and the European Union likes the idea of
"free" or "international" trade more than the specific
agreements that underpin it.
Overwhelming
majoritiesn ranging from 83% in France to 87% in the UK
and the US, said they either "strongly" or "somewhat"
favor international trade, although the most intense
support was found in Britain, where 49% answered
"strongly", compared with only 26% who took that
position in France.
On the other hand,
respondents had a far more restrained view of
"globalization", to which pluralities of 49% in the US
and the UK and 42% in France responded favorably. In
Germany, a majority of 51% responded unfavorably.
When asked about specific trade agreements, the
public was found to be anything but enthusiastic. While
in the three European countries the survey found
relatively strong support for the idea of "free movement
of people, goods and services in the EU's internal
market", only one in five respondents in France and
Germany, and none in Britain, said they had a favorable
opinion of the EU Internal Market.
Similarly,
while 43% of US respondents said they had a favorable
view of the free movement of people, goods and services
among the United States, Canada and Mexico, only 4% said
they had a favorable opinion of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
As for the World Trade
Organization (WTO), 42% of US respondents assessed it as
favorable, compared with 29% who were against it and a
comparable percentage who had no opinion. The
percentages were much the same in both the UK and
Germany, while public opinion in France was decidedly
unfavorable.
At the same time, only 54% of US
respondents said they wanted to negotiate new trade
agreements, while four out of five Europeans said they
were keen on the idea.
Just as respondents were
more skeptical about specific trade agreements than
about the principle of free trade, so they were more
opposed to protectionism as a general principle than
they were to "protecting" specific industries,
especially farming and small businesses.
With
the exception of Germany, solid majorities in each
country said they were willing to support protectionist
measures if European and US farmers were at risk of
being driven out of business.
Solid majorities
in each country said they believed trade was preferable
to aid as an effective tool for reducing poverty in poor
countries, but that position was particularly pronounced
in the United States, where twice as many respondents
(27%) "strongly" opposed aid in principle as in Europe.
At the same time, almost two-thirds of all
respondents said poor countries should get special
consideration in the negotiation of new trade agreements
because of the destructive impact global competition may
have on their relatively fragile economies.
Domestically, according to even greater
majorities, governments should provide workers who may
lose their jobs due to foreign competition more
assistance in the form of education, retraining and
other support.
To gain more popular support for
new trade agreements, proponents - according to the
survey - should convey two fundamental messages that
large majorities of respondents in all four countries
found particularly "convincing".
Four out of
five respondents agreed: "International trade
contributes to prosperity and should therefore be
welcomed, but not at all cost. The US and EU must stand
up for labor and human-rights standards and protect
jobs, the environment and our children. Otherwise, we'll
get a race to the bottom, with jobs being moved to
sweatshops in China, workers in developing countries
living in abominable conditions, and the loss of our
ability to protect against tainted foods. That would be
a race without winners, perhaps with the exception of a
small group of big businesses."
Three out of
four respondents agreed with the second message:
"International trade has both positive and negative
effects. International trade brings a lot of benefits
... but also causes a lot of disruption in millions of
workers' households with people losing their jobs. With
the world becoming a smaller and smaller place, we need
to make trade work for everyone. For us in [your
country], that means we need to invest more in skills
and technology so that our economy becomes more flexible
and innovative."
The German Marshall Fund of the
United States (http://www.gmfus.org), founded in 1972
through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to
Marshall Plan assistance after World War II, is a US
public policy and grant-making institution dedicated to
promoting greater cooperation and understanding between
the US and Europe.
(Inter Press
Service)
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