The Foreign Service Journal, December 2008

that free-trade agreements hurt the United States, com- pared with just 21 percent who said they helped. In a similar poll conducted in December 2007, a majority of the Republicans polled agreed with the statement that free trade had been bad for the United States. What explains the disconnect between the substantial benefits that trade delivers and the declining support it receives from the American public? I believe there are two basic reasons: misinformation and anxiety about the economic future. Most Americans have not thought about what would happen to our economy if we did not have access to glob- al markets. With less than 5 percent of the world’s popu- lation, our nation produces roughly 20 percent of the world’s output. So we need customers beyond our bor- ders to buy our computers, machine tools, aircraft, soy- beans, construction equipment, flat glass and so much more. Few know that the past 60 years of international trade has made average American households richer by $9,000 per year, or realize that an agreement in the current round of trade talks reducing trade barriers by just one- third would increase the average American’s annual income by $2,000. Most are unaware that jobs connect- ed to international commercial activity earn on average 13 to 18 percent more than jobs in the overall economy. They only hear that imports cost jobs, when there is actu- ally a very high correlation between an increase in imports and job creation. And few Americans know that opening markets and expanding opportunities for trade help to alleviate the poverty that puts weak states at risk. They are unaware that wealthy governments, including our own, pay their farmers huge subsidies that force more efficient farmers in poor countries out of the market. Nor do they realize that 80 percent of the subsidies that our government pays its farmers go to large agribusinesses, not to small family concerns. And they would be surprised to learn that the United States, Europe and Japan spend over $7 billion each year to subsidize their less competitive sugar farm- F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49