The “Trump” Effect: Political Elite and Support for Free Trade in America

Abstract

While previous literature has offered two broad categories of explanation for individual trade preferences: economic self-interest and non-economic factors, we contend that during times of intensified elite discourse on trade, individuals may follow elite opinions to form their opinions on trade. Utilizing data from the 2016 American National Election Survey, we examine the effect of Trump’s protectionist views and rhetoric on public trade opinion. We argue that there was a “Trump effect” on trade attitudes among the mass public in 2016 and this effect went beyond the party line, meaning that Trump supporters, regardless of their partisanship, were more likely to be influenced by his protectionist views and to adopt anti-free trade positions. Moreover, we suggest a conditional effect of political knowledge on the “Trump effect” of trade opinion. Our empirical tests offer strong support for both hypotheses, suggesting a significant “Trump effect” on public trade opinion in 2016.

Political Trust and American Public Support for Free Trade

“…I also find that feelings toward “Big Business” matter as well. Trade attitudes also appear to strongly driven by a “Trump effect” (Essig et al, 2021 ), with anti-trade (pro-trade) individuals supporting (opposing) the candidacy of Donald Trump in 2016 or, more likely, the result of individuals “following the leader” (Lenz, 2012 ) and adjusting their trade attitudes to bring them in line with their feelings toward Trump.…”

“…I also include a battery of theoretically appropriate variables that have been identified by past work as important explanations of Americans’ trade attitudes (e.g., Ehrlich & Maestas, 2010 ; Essig et al, 2021 ; Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2006 ; Johnston, 2013 ; Mansfield & Mutz, 2009 ). Collectively, this combination of variables should help to account for the role of economic self-interest, sociotropic economic concerns, political identities, out-group attitudes, and cosmopolitanism.…”

The Multisided Threat to Free Trade: Protectionism and Fair Trade During Increasing Populism

“…The rise of Donald Trump's brand of populist protectionism did attract those who may have held anti-trade tendencies, to begin with, but it also may have caused those who had xenophobic attitudes to connect their grievances to trade. For example, previous work has argued that Trump supporters who feel as if their racial dominance is being threatened or view America's global dominance as declining sometimes blamed economic openness for this decline, but others only connected this to trade once Trump's populist rhetoric of America losing to other countries gained a foothold (Essig et al, 2021).…”

Reconsidering Bellwether Locations in U.S. Presidential Elections

“…These are places said to be associated with economic anxiety and revanchism, and their location is not an accident (Carnes and Lupu 2021; Farley 2019; Galston and Kamarck 2022; Goetz, Partridge, and Stephens 2018; Guest 2018; McQuarrie 2017; Morgan and Lee 2019; Muravchik and Shields 2020; Thaler and Grossmann 2018). They are sometimes described as having been “left behind”—the extent to which modern economic trends have passed them by, inclining them to be suspicious of free trade policies, and restrictionist on immigration (Essig et al 2021; Goetz, Partridge, and Stephens 2018; McKay 2019). There remains sympathy for many basic tenets of social democracy, but a countervalent attitude of resentment toward the nonworking poor and the government programs that provide for them (Muravchik and Shields 2020, chap.…”