Plurality of Americans: U.S. Benefits Least from Current Free Trade Deals

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

The plurality of Americans say the United States has benefited less than foreign countries in multinational free trade deals, a new poll reveals.

In the latest Morning Consult Poll, 32 percent of American adults said the U.S. has benefitted less than other countries in free trade deals. Only 17 percent of adults said the U.S. has benefitted more than other countries in free trade deals.

American men—whose working and middle-class jobs are impacted the most by job-outsourcing free trade—are vastly skeptical of multinational free trade. Nearly 40 percent of American men said the U.S. has benefitted less than foreign countries from trade deals like NAFTA.

The majority of conservatives say the U.S. has not made out as well with free trade deals as other countries. About 53 percent of conservatives said American industry has benefited less than foreign nations that the country has entered into free trade deals with. Likewise, 55 percent of voters who see President Trump “very favorably” say the same about free trade deals that the U.S. has gotten into.

As Breitbart News reported, the poll also revealed that 5-in-7 Americans say cheap foreign labor overseas—which has flourished under widespread free trade—contributed to the collapse of the U.S. manufacturing industry.

After NAFTA was implemented, American manufacturing employment plummetted with 5 million manufacturing jobs being eliminated between 2000 and 2014.

Free trade, like immigration, is an issue that has come at the expense of American workers. With free trade, foreign markets have been readily opened to multinational corporations, allowing them to offshore American jobs while easily exporting their products back into the U.S.

The Rust Belt has been one of the hardest regions hit because of U.S. free trade with Mexico. In total, about 700,000 U.S. workers have been displaced, including:

  • 14,500 American workers displaced in Wisconsin
  • 43,600 American workers displaced in Michigan
  • 2,600 American workers displaced in West Virginia
  • 26,300 American workers displaced in Pennsylvania
  • 34,900 American workers displaced in Ohio
  • 34,300 American workers displaced in New York
  • 6,500 American workers displaced in Iowa
  • 24,400 American workers displaced in Indiana
  • 34,700 American workers displaced in Illinois

One former steel town in West Virginia lost 94 percent of its steel jobs because of NAFTA, with nearly 10,000 workers in the town being displaced from the steel industry.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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