The other day, I mentioned the polling questions related to the free trade views of the Tea Party. Looking a little more closely at these questions, I noticed something else of interest. One of the questions (see p. 11 of the document) asked was:
Do free trade agreements make the price of products sold in the U.S. higher, lower or not make a difference?
To my great surprise, 31% of people said that prices were higher because of free trade agreements!! Now, I can understand opposing trade agreements because of specific job losses, or because more generally you weigh the disruptive effects of trade on employment, as compared to consumer benefits, differently than I do. But how can 31% of people think that trade agreements lead to higher prices? What do they think trade agreements do?
I can think of two possible answers. First, as noted in the post from the other day, some people think that trade agreements are about "managed trade." I'm not always sure what they mean by this, but my guess is they have in mind some sort of market sharing arrangement, in which corporations perhaps get guaranteed market access. Or they think trade organizations are where you go to increase tariffs, as Ron Paul once said.
Second, it is possible that a few people are aware of the IP protection aspects of trade agreements, and for that reason think that trade agreements will mean higher prices. But I can't imagine that, aside from a few committed activists, many people know this.
But either way, I can only assume that those who responded by saying that prices would be higher are unaware of the tariff cutting aspects of trade agreements, which, of course, is a pretty important part. Cutting tariffs lowers a tax and increases competition. How could that not lower prices?
I'd be interested to see what the responses would have been if instead of asking about "free trade agreements," the pollsters replaced that term with "lower tariffs (import taxes)" in all the questions.
