IBD/TIPP Poll: Anti-Import Sentiment Grows

Investors Business Daily ^ | August 26, 2016 | IBD/TIPP

[expat_panama]

Americans these days are not in a charitable mood when it comes to trade, it seems. The August IBD/TIPP Poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly favor placing restrictions on imports ...

Generally speaking, do you think the U.S. trade policy should have restrictions on imported goods to protect American jobs or have no restrictions on imported goods to enable American consumers to have more choices and the lowest prices?

[expat_panama]

So far I've only been able to find this in the print edition but am expecting they'll get it on line.   Results:

Even tho this just went to print, the poll was taken almost a month ago, the same time this one came out:

[reed13k]

I don’t necessarily want additional restrictions on imports - I just want them to enforce the rules required of US companies on the importing companies equally - across the board for all regulations: OSHA, EPA, NTSB (probably closest), FDA (I know the inspections aren’t equal I’m in the industry), etc

[expat_panama]

...just want them to enforce the rules required of US companies on the importing companies equally - across the board for all regulations: OSHA, EPA, NTSB (probably closest), FDA...

lol --only that?

We can want that but we got to understand that Canada, Mexico, UK, etc. don't want those things anymore than you and I do.  On top of that they're going to want us to comply w/ all their laws/regulations/limits.  Big imports from Canada & Mexico are oil plus Mexican coffee and Canadian furs.   Are we really going to raise U.S. prices on those things until they have Obamacare?

[Lower Deck]

Ask them it they’re willing to pay 30% or 40% more for their cell phones, their TVs, their shoes, clothing and furniture and then repeat the question on trade.

[Nifster]

Good this so called treaty is a mess

[reed13k]

So are you saying that we shouldn’t demand an even playing field? I admit my preference is that we reduce the regulation, but if we want the regulation than all producers for our market should adhere to it.

And we already have to comply with other countries requirements - in med devices export alone there is SFDA (China), MHLW (Japan), NGF (Australia), MDD (Europe), and on and on....even Canada has specific unique requirements.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Americans don’t vote that way at the cash register.

[expat_panama]

That’s for sure, one way of thinking for how to spend my tax money, and an entirely different way when it comes to spending their own money.

[rb22982]

In most cases, it would raise prices probably 5-10%, if that, given that labor costs in the US is usually only 10-20% of the total product cost. Even labor heavy retail usually only runs 15-20% of sales as labor. More likely, it would just shift some of the economics from the business back to workers. There is a reason middle class wages have stagnated from 1989 while the top 1, 3 and 5% have skyrocketed (of which, I’m in the top 3% and rising).

[Oatka]

So are you saying that we shouldn’t demand an even playing field?

Agreed. When NAFTA was being promoted, I waded through the two three-inch thick volumes on that bill and found that in most cases we would drop our tariffs immediately, but the others could retain theirs for ten years - and other loopholes. As in, they could export any size engine to us but they could ban anything bigger than a lawnmower engine from us. The list of "exceptions" went on and on, and I suspect that's how many, if not all, of our "Free Trade" deals are written.

The big deal, IMO, was to allow our factories to move overseas for the cheap labor and import the goods with little or no reduction in prices to the consumer.

When Perot was running for President, he showed a photo of a Ford plant in Mexico and asked "What's wrong with this picture?". He pointed out that there were no parking lots for the workers who, unlike their counterparts in the U.S., could afford to buy the products they were making. While some of our stuff wouldn't appeal to the locals, there were a lot of "I can't afford this" by people who worked in similar just-moved-down-here factories.

[expat_panama]

So are you saying that we shouldn’t demand an even playing field?

Agreed...   ...just-moved-down-here factories.

Y'all kind of left me behind here, we changed from business stuff like imports and regulations and we went to playing in the field --and now we got factories moving to other countries.

Sure it's how everyone talks politics but like Jeeves was saying, somehow the way we think w/ the vote has become a world away from how we think at the cash register

[reed13k]

It’s actually the same thought process - it’s just for low information voters and those on the take it takes longer for them to realize that it actually impacts them directly through a lack of higher paying jobs instead of at the register where they originally saw lower prices.

I say originally because having dealt with both Mexico, China, and other “Low cost countries” I know that as soon as they get those jobs and start to see an increase in earnings that the cycle starts all over there and prices start to rise again for the consumer. The repeating cycle is part of why China is now saying they will let people fail as they watch some of their jobs being shipped to vietnam and the next wave of countries.

[Laser_Ray]

Finally starting to sink into the thick skulls of the great unwashed that paying a couple dollars less for crap goods that wear out 10x faster isn’t really saving them anything when their friends and family are losing their jobs.