Greater exposure to trade with China has endangered moderates in Congress and empowered both liberals and conservatives, according to new research that lends some credibility to economic explanations of the rise of anti-trade deal candidates such as Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
A new report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday researched voting patterns from 2002 to 2010 and found that majority-white congressional districts more exposed to trade saw a 20 percent higher probability of electing conservatives to office, mostly at the expense of moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats. In majority-nonwhite districts, there was a similarly higher chance of liberal Democrats taking over.
As a result of trade cutting into U.S. manufacturing, especially with China, voters are “seeking answers to a common source of economic decline from political actors with divergent ideologies,” the authors write.
Three of the paper’s authors, David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn of the University of Zurich and Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, are economists who have published research finding that increased trade with China hurt some American workers more than previously thought. Liberalized trade with China killed about 1 million U.S. jobs, they found.
They arrived at their latest finding by combining their research on the effects of trade with an examination of voting results in congressional districts across the country.
The results are a sign that presidential candidates from both parties are politically savvy to run against signing new trade deals, the authors write. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both said that they would stop the planned Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal from becoming law. Trump, in particular, has blamed recent trade deals for dissatisfaction with the economy, and multiple candidates have charged that trade with China is hurting the U.S. “This vitriolic campaign rhetoric is indicative of deeper truths,” the authors conclude.
Although Republicans for decades have generally supported free trade and backed trade deals, the economists suggest that it is not unusual for right-wing parties to mount opposition to liberalized trade. “Globally, skepticism about trade is common among far-right political movements, including the Tea Party, which tend to have nationalist and populist tendencies,” they wrote.
While the U.S. economy is greatly improved from the financial crisis in some ways, Trump and other candidates, such as Sanders, have had success promoting a gloomy view of affairs. Recent academic research has suggested that voters might be inclined to respond to such messages partly because of the effects of trade and immigration.
