The New York Times recently came out with an article outlining some interesting statistics about voters in the United States supporting trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This is most interesting because both major-party candidates actually oppose the trade agreement that was established by President Obama.
In the article, the NYT outlines that the point that Republicans tend to be pro-trade but since the Republican candidate Donald Trump is so anti-trade, the R’s are staunchly against these trade agreements. However, younger voters still strongly support trade agreements such as the TPP and overall voters polled either support trade or are overall split on it.
Now what’s most interesting about Hillary Clinton opposing the TPP is that she used to carry a non-aggressive view after working with Obama in his administration. However, after Bernie Sanders put such an anti-TPP push throughout his campaigning, Clinton came out anti-TPP. According to the NYT article, as it stands now, 55 percent of Clinton’s supporters believe that the agreement would help the United States.
What tends to frustrate the working class with the TPP is the idea that they feel like their jobs are being sent away to other nations and that’s what leads to states like Ohio opposing it.
The most “counterintuitive finding” as the NYT calls it from the article, is the fact that these voters were asked if they would want the next president to have trade agreements or avoid them and it actually came out to be 75 percent in support of the agreements and 17 percent against them. If that leaves you flabbergasted after the additional data, then I’m right there with you.
It’ll be interesting to see what the next president actually does and THEN see how the voters react. We could find ourselves in a circle of support and opposition.