Tea Party's New Target: Free Trade
Obama's trip to India has raised the tea party's anger over free trade. Will they now push the GOP to turn more protectionist?
If the increasingly hostile Tea Party base is turning the GOP into the party of Medicare, will it also turn them into the party of protectionism? The Republican hostility to the president’s recent trip to India suggests this is a real threat and new polling numbers bear this out. A new Pew Poll released on November 9th showed that 54% of Republicans and 63% of Tea Partiers believe that free trade agreements are “bad” for America. This is higher than the numbers for both Democrats (35%) and independents (46%).
The Economist noticed that fact that support for free trade comes from Americans who are both younger, and have college degrees, while there is less support from those who are older and with only a high school education:
By 56% to 37%, those under 30 say that more trade with China is good for the U.S. Those 30- 49 and 50- 64 are divided, but more of those 65 and older see increased trade with China as bad for the country rather than good (52% to 37%).
In the same way that an older GOP electorate has made the party more deferential to defending Medicare, it may also lead to more hostility to free trade agreements.
On Monday, Tea Party Nation founder Judson Philips wrote a blog post condemning President Obama’s trip to India. In addition to rehashing the conservative meme that the trip is an expensive boondoggle, he also launched an assault on the past two decades of globalization and free trade:
For the last twenty-one years, we have had Presidents who were globalists. Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and now Obama.
They have all believed free trade would be a panacea that would float the United States into the next level of prosperity. What we have instead seen is the absolute destruction of the American manufacturing sector. Very few things are made in America anymore. We were sold on the idea that the service sector economy would take over and we would all have the middle class dream.
Now, those middle class dreams have gone up in smoke as many of these “service” sector jobs are now handled in…. India.
The Tea Party Nation website serves as a barometer for the opinions of the conservative base as opposed to the opinions of the GOP establishment. The comments in response to his post showed very strong agreement. One particularly angry commentator expressed the same point with even more vigor:
Well, if PROTECTIONISM means asking the American Corporations "that sleep under the PROTECTION OF THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and their families and their wealth" TO DO THEIR PART TO RETURN AMERICAN INDUSTRY TO OUR SHORES AND DO THEIR PART TO ENSURE THAT OUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT THWARTED AND OUR LIBERTY AND SECURITY SOLD ON THE WORLD MARKET TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER......THEN I CALL FOR PROTECTIONISM!!
Other bloggers have done their part to help their party delegitimize the trip. Pamela Geller wrote that the real purpose of Obama’s trip is to “divert attention from the ‘shellacking’ he took last Tuesday.” Republican lawmakers have not made explicit calls for protectionism, but Rep. Bachmann’s that the trip is costing the American taxpayer $200 million a day also gained traction on the right.
Now though, these accusations are taking place in an environment of increasing American skepticism of international trade. An NBC poll released in September of 2010 showed 61% of Tea Partiers agreeing that free trade has hurt the United States.
Skepticism about free trade is usually directed towards China. A Citizens Against Government Waste ad featuring a Chinese professor in the future lording over the decline of America captured this anxiety very effectively. With China, these anxieties are also more justified since they are manipulating their currency and distorting global trade patterns.
However, India is a rising economy and one that America is supposed to be supportive of. The centerpiece of Obama's trip to India is a new $10 billion export deal, which AEI’s own blog gave an “A+” rating for.
For a portion of the 1990’s free trade policies used to be an area where there was bi-partisan consensus. Open markets would allow for cheaper goods and higher standards of living. The fact that China and India are now competitors to the United States with populations that are growing wealthier is a testament to the success of free market capitalism in lifting people out of poverty.
Unfortunately, Republicans appear to have dropped in the ball in this area. The Pledge to America makes no mention of free trade, and it’s not only India which may become the target of protectionist rhetoric. Campbell Clark reports in the Globe and Mail that even Canada, America’s largest trading partner, will face a less free trade friendly environment from Tea Party Republicans. This is not entirely unexpected, after all, some of the concerns of newly elected Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky include the NAFTA superhighway and “Amero” currency.
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