(Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News)The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has been deeply skeptical of the Trump administration’s approach to trade. I mistakenly presumed that Trump’s repeated use of the bully pulpit would cause Americans to turn against trade liberalization. The populist revolt against international trade has been an underlying narrative that allegedly helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election by minus 3 million votes or something. The point is, as president, Trump has repeatedly railed against existing trade deals such as NAFTA. As Smeltz and Kafura note, “The overall increases in positive views of trade are driven by double-digit increases among Republicans and Independents, as well as slight increases among Democrats, who already held broadly positive views of trade.” In other words, Trump opponents like trade because he does not, and Trump supporters like trade because they like him as America’s trade negotiator.

Source: Washington Post August 27, 2018 14:01 UTC