NEW POLL: TRADE WAS A TOP ISSUE FOR MANY 2020 VOTERS

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NEW POLL: TRADE WAS A TOP ISSUE FOR MANY 2020 VOTERS

November 25th, 2020 Anne Kim Leave a comment

Nearly Half of U.S. Voters Identified Trade as a Top Issue in Presidential Election

In a likely reflection of the front-and-center emphasis President Donald Trump has put on trade policy in his Administration, nearly half of U.S. voters identified trade as a top issue influencing their vote for president in 2020, according to TradeVistas’ latest survey.

Our poll also found that over the next four years, Americans want to prioritize policies supporting the U.S. production of goods and services, such as increasing U.S. exports abroad and promoting “Buy American” at home.

In our post-election survey of 1009 American adults, conducted by Lincoln Park Strategies, 22 percent of respondents said trade was “the most important issue to me” in determining their 2020 vote, while 27 percent said it was “one of the most important issues” to them. Of the rest, 32 percent said while trade was important, it didn’t affect their vote, and 20 percent said they were not sure or that it’s “not an issue I really care about.”

Over 60 Percent of Republicans Said Trade Was “Most” or “One of Most” Important Issues

Republicans were more likely to see trade as a top concern, with 61 percent saying it was the most important or one of the most important issues to their vote (versus 45 percent of Democrats. Independents, on the other hand, were the most likely to say it did not influence their vote (43 percent). Men were more likely to say trade was “the most important” issue to them (31 percent), while women were more likely to say a candidate’s position on trade did not affect their vote (39 percent).

Trade as a Proxy for the General Economy

While the salience of trade as an election issue might seem surprising to some, there are a couple of potential explanations for our results. First, many voters may see trade policy as a proxy for their concern about the economy more generally. (In national exit polls, 37 percent of U.S. voters – including 83 percent of those voting for President Trump – said the economy was the issue that mattered most to their vote.) Moreover, Trump has made trade policy a centerpiece of his economic agenda, particularly with his trade war against China, the renegotiation of NAFTA as USMCA, and his promises to bring back jobs lost to offshoring. The President’s advocacy of policies like “Buy American” also explicitly linked the creation of U.S. jobs to U.S. production, which has arguably led to the conflation of trade and economic policy in the public mind.

Buy American to Remain a Top Priority

As our September survey found, Buy American enjoys immense bipartisan support, and respondents in our post-election poll indicated that this policy is their top priority among the options we tested. In our survey, 33 percent of respondents said policies like Buy American are “extremely important” to pursue over the next four years, compared to 26 percent who believed it extremely important to negotiate new trade agreements with other countries and 24 percent who said the same of increasing the export of U.S. goods and services. Consistent with our September survey, men and Republicans were somewhat more likely to consider Buy American to be “extremely important” (40 percent and 43 percent respectively). Overall, 61 percent of Americans said Buy American was “extremely important” or “very important,” while 59 percent said the same of new trade deals and more exports.

Tariff Fatigue Could Go Either Way

One policy that did not enjoy as strong support was the idea of imposing new tariffs. Just 20 percent said imposing new tariffs on foreign goods was “extremely important,” while an almost equal number – 19 percent – said new tariffs were not important (13 percent) or were opposed to the idea (6 percent).

On the other hand, low rates of opposition to new tariffs could indicate newfound acceptance of tariffs as a tool (or cudgel) in future trade policy.

The Next Four Years

What all this means for the next four years is that Americans want to see and will support trade policies that aggressively promote American economic interests abroad and will create new jobs at home.

Methodology: Lincoln Park Strategies conducted 1009 interviews among adults age 18+ were from November 9-10, 2020 using an online survey. The results were weighted to ensure proportional responses. The Bayesian confidence interval for 1,000 interviews is 3.5, which is roughly equivalent to a margin of error of ±3.1 at the 95% confidence level.

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Anne Kim is a contributing editor to Washington Monthly and the author of Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection, forthcoming in 2020 from the New Press. Her writings on economic opportunity, social policy, and higher education have appeared in numerous national outlets, including the Washington Monthly, the Washington Post, Governing and Atlantic.com, among others. She is a veteran of the think tanks the Progressive Policy Institute and Third Way as well as of Capitol Hill, where she worked for Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). Anne has a law degree from Duke University and a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

This article appeared on TradeVistas.org. Republished with permission.

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7 Insights to Prepare Investors for the Impact of the Presidential Election on Real Estate

October 30th, 2020 Polina Ryshakov Leave a comment

The 2020 presidential election campaign is a highly contentious affair. Doubtless, the results of the election will have a far-reaching impact on a number of sectors of the American economy. But what are the true implications for the housing market?

How will each candidate’s policies affect real estate? Whether you’re investing in real estate or just looking to buy or sell a house, here are some tips and insights to help you prepare and prosper, regardless of who wins.

1. Keep calm and carry on

Regardless of who wins on election day, real estate prices probably won’t see any drastic long-term changes. Historically speaking, the housing market performs consistently (and consistently well) under both Democrats and Republicans. Since 1979, the annual rate of property returns averaged between approximately 7 and 10 percent for both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations.

2. Prosperity often follows uncertainty

In election years, home sales usually drop off from October to November more steeply than in non-election years (-15% vs -10%). This reflects buyer caution facing the uncertain outcome of a presidential election. However, the year following a presidential election is typically the strongest housing market year in every four-year election cycle, suggesting that the dropoff in November simply delays demand until the following year.

3. Ignore red herrings, watch for black swans

Our system ensures that presidents alone don’t make laws or control fiscal and monetary policy. This means the president’s impact on housing may be overrated. On the other hand, natural disasters, geopolitical events, and ongoing developments with COVID-19 are more likely to have an impact on property values and rent trends than election results. Exogenous shocks to the system can increase unemployment and force interest rate changes, which in turn disrupt financial and housing markets.

4. Pay attention to investor incentives

Election results in the 2020 cycle probably matter a bit more to real estate investors than to retail home buyers. This is because the candidates have divergent policy prescriptions on several investor-oriented policy tools, including 1031 Exchanges and opportunity zones.

5. To the victor go the construction spoils

Red states have reported higher consumer confidence levels than blue states since the 2016 election. Likewise, single-family building permit growth was stronger over the same period in Trump-voting counties than in Clinton-voting ones, despite similar job and wage growth. It logically follows that a Biden win could benefit home building in blue counties, while a Trump re-election could continue propelling strong performance in red counties.

6. Follow the money

Over time, as presidential administrations roll out their spending priorities, different economic sectors respond in varying ways. The true consequences of the election on real estate markets will likely take a couple of years to materialize. Opportunities for investors and consumers to seize will present themselves based on what industries a president focuses on, and how well their administration works with Congress.

7. Weather the storm (and hope it passes quickly)

The biggest short-term risk to the housing market and the larger economy overall is a disputed election and protracted legal battle. Such a scenario would likely be accompanied by widespread civil unrest, which would spook stock markets, rattle consumer confidence, and in extreme scenarios cause massive property damage across the country. During the disputed 2000 election, the Dow Jones average fell 4% in the month between election day and the moment Al Gore conceded. It rebounded rapidly thereafter.

This article originally appeared here. Republished with permission.

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A WORLD OF TRADE UNCERTAINTY

October 28th, 2020 Andrea Durkin Leave a comment

The U.S.-China trade war and Brexit have generated quantifiable uncertainty in the marketplace, but the impact of those events is being eclipsed by the uncertainty generated by the global pandemic.

Taking an Economic Pulse

If you search the Internet for the term “economic uncertainty” or close variations, you’d find what you already know just living through the current times. It’s the default word to describe the uptick in political and trade tensions and in the precarious health of the national economy as well as our personal economic lives.

Even prior to COVID-19, the U.S.-China trade war and Brexit — to tick off current major stressors — Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, along with his colleagues Scott Baker from Northwestern University and Steven Davis of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, sought to quantify the impact of uncertainty and its impact on business, consumer and policy decisions and vice versa.

Rising levels of political and policy uncertainty are perceived to have a dampening effect on commercial investments, hiring, and economic growth, and appear to be reflected in stock market volatility. Policy uncertainty – including uncertainty in trade policies – doesn’t only manifest as risk aversion by companies, it may effectively raise the cost of capital for investing. Companies may freeze hiring and begin to rely on attrition to thin their employment ranks or begin layoffs in anticipation of slower growth. This behavior in turn may diminish the returns from government stimulus spending, itself designed to induce firm investments by offsetting some of their risk. Stimulus works better if policy and economic uncertainties are reduced.

“Uncertainty” is often described as the intangible or “X factor” in economic forecasts. Bloom and his colleagues wanted to find out whether uncertainty is more tangible and evident than we think.

Stress Testing

Bloom, Baker and Davis constructed an index to measure policy-related economic uncertainty. They used data from search results from newspaper coverage by 10 large publications including the Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News, looking for mentions of economic uncertainty within certain parameters. Their work included a measure of fiscal uncertainty as represented by the number of federal tax code provisions set to expire in future years and drew on disagreements among economic forecasters as a proxy for uncertainty.

An “Echo” Report

First, some caveats:

Newspaper coverage is of course dependent upon the reporting choices made by editors at these papers and weighed against what else is driving the news of the day that may eclipse trade policy. The media mirrors uncertainty it observes and may also generate uncertainty through its own reporting.

And while the stock market has shown patterns associated with political elections, the market doesn’t make significant swings in close proximity to political elections. Politicians like to suggest that party majorities across government is good for the markets. But it would appear that political gridlock offers more stability and is considered more “market friendly” than when one political party has both houses of Congress and the White House.

That said, the Economic Policy Uncertainty index (EPU) created by Bloom and his colleagues maps the impact of “uncertainty” such that we can see clear stock market volatility associated with other types of major political events and policy developments – most recently, flare-ups in the U.S.-China trade dispute and the unfolding of Brexit.

The impacts of uncertainty generated by the global pandemic are clearly much higher than the trade uncertainty associated with the U.S.-China trade war and Brexit.

Furthermore, when comparing key words associated with the four different categories of health, fiscal, monetary and trade policy, trade policy uncertainty had been the highest among the four with a spike in 2019, but it is now low and the lowest among these four – again, due to overriding concerns driven by the pandemic.

Bloom has cautioned that trade uncertainty as a driver may have receded in comparison with other concerns. However, the open-ended nature of the current U.S.-China trade conflict and the looming Brexit deadlines mean that trade uncertainty may be more of a sleeping than a slayed giant.

In general, Bloom, Baker and Davis find that, as measured by the EPU index, current levels of economic policy uncertainty are at “extremely elevated levels.” Since 2008, economic policy uncertainty averaged about twice the level of the previous 23 years.

Pile on the Social Anxiety

Bloom, Baker and Davis have also extracted Twitter data on economic uncertainty and compared their findings with the results reflected in the EPU index. Twitter chatter does reflect much of the same heightened sense of anxiety over the uncertainty of Brexit and U.S.-China trade tensions, but the levels of anxiety generally track lower. This could be largely attributed to the sheer breadth and inconsistency of posts by the millions of people tweeting. It’s hard to find the signal in all that considerable and often frivolous noise.

From 9/11 to SARS to El Niño: An Entire World of Uncertainty

In a broadening of this approach to tracking events and impacts associated with economic uncertainty, Nick Bloom has worked with economists Hites Ahir and Davide Furceri of the IMF to develop the World Uncertainty Index (WUI). They used a series of regular country reports produced by the Economic Intelligence Unit as basis for quantifying references to economic uncertainty across 143 countries.

On a global basis over the last two decades, the WUI shows spikes around the 9/11 attacks, the SARS outbreak, the second Gulf War, the Lehman Brothers failure, the Euro debt crisis, El Niño, the Europe border-control crisis, the UK’s referendum vote in favor of Brexit, the 2016 U.S. presidential election and recent U.S.-China trade tensions. The WUI tends to rise closer to political elections – like the consequential one in two weeks. The authors point out that the index captures uncertainty created by specific near-term events but also long-term concerns such as tensions between North and South Korea.

The authors say global uncertainty has “increased significantly” since 2012. Notably, that uncertainty has not, however, translated into stock market volatility, perhaps because the political news has increasingly become difficult for investors to interpret.

Uncertainty tends to be synchronized among advanced economies, especially among the euro area countries. And, as countries move from regimes of autocracy towards democracy, uncertainty increases but declines as the degree of democracy increases and as the quality of institutions improves. The WUI offers an interesting window into what drives uncertainty in individual economies, as well. For example, China experiences higher levels of uncertainty in association with key leadership transitions. The UK experienced a spike in uncertainty at the time of the Scottish referendum.

When Flat-Lining is Good

Trade as a component of the World Uncertainty Index has been low and nearly flat for most of the last twenty years, but has experienced a major spike in uncertainty over the last four years, in particular due to the U.S.-China trade dispute and the setbacks in negotiating a smooth UK exit from the European Community. As Nicholas Bloom has put it, the United States, UK and China have been “exporting uncertainty”.

Trade Versus COVID-19

For close to an entire year now, COVID-19 has been dominant and pervasive in our lives and the global economy. COVID-19 is novel by definition. The unknowns and uncertainty it wreaks show up everywhere – in stock markets, on Twitter and in the news. It should not be surprising, then, that the spike in uncertainty caused by COVID-19 far outstrips that caused by the U.S.-China trade war.

But global trade tensions are not receding and the aftershocks of COVID-19 will continue to be felt in supply chain restructuring. That restructuring will take place in an environment of increasing restrictions on foreign investments, export controls, sanctions, and blacklisting of entities and individuals that multinational corporations can do business with. Long-established supply chain relationships may be less disrupted, but new relationships may not be initiated at the same rate or in the same way in times of high economic policy uncertainty.

While measuring the real impacts of economic uncertainty in still a relatively new concept, central banks and government agencies are beginning to pay attention, and to that end, it will be interesting to continue to take our collective pulse using indices like the EPU and WUI.

Hear Nicholas Bloom explain in his own words in this webinar presented by the Clayton Yeutter Institute of Trade and Finance at the University of Nebraska. Images are drawn from the slides used by Nicholas Bloom and accessible here.

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Andrea Durkin is the Editor-in-Chief of TradeVistas and Founder of Sparkplug, LLC. Ms. Durkin previously served as a U.S. Government trade negotiator and has proudly taught international trade policy and negotiations for the last fifteen years as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service program.

Archives, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

AMERICANS LOVE TO “BUY AMERICAN”

September 29th, 2020 Anne Kim Leave a comment

TradeVistas’ September poll shows overwhelming support for “Buy American” policies, while one in four Americans – and nearly 1 in 3 Republicans – say trade is “the most important issue” in their vote for president this election cycle.

“Buy American” is likely to be a prominent campaign theme this fall as Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat party candidate Joe Biden sketch out their plans for reviving the U.S. economy in the midst of a pandemic.

Biden’s aggressive “Buy American” agenda proposes major investments in federal procurement and infrastructure to support domestic manufacturing. Trump, meanwhile, has made “Buy American” a cornerstone of his Administration. After campaigning in 2016 to bring back U.S. jobs lost to global competition, Trump has levied tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, launched a trade war against China and issued executive orders aimed at ensuring that U.S. companies were the federal government’s preferred suppliers.

TradeVistas’ September poll of 1,003 adults, conducted by Lincoln Park Strategies, shows strong support for “America First” approaches like Buy American. Our survey shows strong bipartisan approval of Buy American federal procurement policies, which a plurality of Americans say would create large numbers of jobs. Americans also say they support Buy American in their personal spending, with a slight majority saying they’d pay a premium for U.S.-made goods. Finally, we find that the Trump’s Administration’s focus on trade policy may have elevated the importance of this issue among many voters, particularly among Republicans and likely Trump voters.

1. Big support for “Buy American.”

Overall, three out of four Americans (75 percent) say they support Buy American policies requiring the federal government to buy from domestic suppliers whenever possible.* Nearly half – 48 percent – say they “strongly support” the policy, while just 5 percent of Americans say they are either “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed, while 21 percent were “indifferent.”

Majority support was consistent across education, race and income, but was strongest among self-described Republicans, 70 percent of whom “strongly support” the policy (compared to 40 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of Independents). Among likely voters, 68 percent of those planning to vote for Trump also said they “strongly support” Buy American, compared to 41 percent among likely Biden voters and 39 percent among those who were undecided. Men were also more likely to be strong supporters (56 percent versus 41 percent).

2. Strong belief that “Buy American” policies generate jobs

While some prominent economists have criticized Buy American policies as counterproductive and potentially even leading to the loss of U.S. jobs, respondents in our survey believe the opposite. Nearly 4 in 5 respondents (79 percent) say Buy American procurement policies would create jobs, including 41 percent who say it would create “a large number of jobs” and 38 percent who say it would create “some new jobs.” Again, this support was consistent across race, education and income.

Democrats were more skeptical than Republicans, however. While 60 percent of Republicans said Buy American would create many jobs, 36 percent of Democrats said the same. (However, only 2 percent of Democrats said the policy would “hurt American jobs.”) Similarly, likely Trump voters were more likely to say Buy American would create large numbers of jobs compared to likely Biden voters (59 percent versus 31 percent). Undecideds fell in the middle with 42 percent.

3. Americans would pay more to Buy American themselves

Americans in our survey seem to support Buy American as a broad statement of economic patriotism and would pay more to buy U.S.-made goods.

Twenty-five percent of respondents in our survey said they would choose an American-made good over a comparable foreign product “regardless of cost,” while 31 percent say they would pay a 10 to 20 percent premium. Another 25 percent said they would buy the U.S. product if it were the same price as a comparable item, while 9 percent said they would purchase the cheaper product, and 10 percent were unsure.

These results run counter to earlier surveys finding that while the majority of Americans believe it important to buy U.S. products, they are less willing to pony up a premium. A 2017 Reuters/Ipsos poll, for instance, found that while 70 percent of Americans think if “very important” or “somewhat important” to buy U.S. goods, 37 percent said they would not pay more for an American product, while 26 percent said they would pay only up to 5 percent more.

One potential explanation for our results is negative shifting consumer sentiment toward products made in China. A 2020 survey by FTI Consulting, for instance, found that 40 percent of Americans say they won’t buy Chinese-made goods.

Our survey found significant partisan differences over buying American, which indicate a solidification of views likely prompted by Trump. While 46 percent of Republicans said they would buy American regardless of price, just 18 percent of Democrats said the same (although 32 percent of Democrats also said they would be willing to pay a 10 to 20 percent premium). The starkest difference, however, was between Republican men and Democratic women. While 52 percent of Republican men said they would buy American regardless of cost, only 14 percent of Democratic women said they would do so.

4. Trade as a crucial election issue for key sets of voters

Partisan enthusiasm for Buy American may also translate into the elevation of trade as an election issue for many of the respondents in our survey. Overall, 19 percent of total respondents said a candidate’s position on trade is “the most important issue to me,” while 25 percent said trade is “one of the most important issues” determining their vote for president.

These figures, however, mask significant partisan differences in how likely voters view the importance of trade. For instance, while 66 percent of Republicans in our survey said trade was the most important or among the most important issues to them in their vote for president, half as many Democrats (33 percent) felt the same. Similarly, while 64 percent of likely Trump voters said trade was the most important issue or among the most important election issues to them, 62 percent of likely Biden voters said trade “is important but will not have an effect on my vote” or is “not an issue I really care about.” Trade does, however, seem to matter for undecided voters in our poll; 59 percent considered the issue to be the most important or among the most important in their vote for president.

These results mirror findings showing sharp partisan differences in the issues that matter most to voters this fall. The Pew Research Center, for instance, finds that while the economy is the top concern of Trump voters, Biden supporters are the most concerned about health care and the pandemic. For many Republicans and Trump supporters, the interest in trade policy is likely a proxy for this broader concern over the economy.

“Buy American” has always made for good politics, tapping into Americans’ strong sense of economic patriotism. But there are a couple reasons why American sentiment toward buying American might be especially strong today, even aside from the particular focus on U.S. production by President Trump.

For one thing, the coronavirus pandemic exposed major weaknesses in global supply chains, reinforcing concerns about U.S. over-reliance on foreign imports, particularly for medicines, medical equipment and other vital products. Boosting domestic production and manufacturing will also be crucial to America’s post-pandemic recovery. So long as millions of Americans remain under-employed or unemployed as a result of COVID-19, federal investment in domestic production or infrastructure could help put Americans back to work.

Given both political parties’ embrace of Buy American, it will be a priority regardless of who wins the White House in November.

*Note: While our survey sought to measure Americans’ perspectives on “Buy American” as a matter of federal policy, we realize that Americans are likely to interpret “Buy American” more broadly, to include personal spending decisions as well as those by the government. Politicians have also added to the confusion by using the phrase “Buy American” to show support for domestic manufacturing and production generally.

Methodology: 1,003 interviews among adults age 18+ were conducted by Lincoln Park Strategies from September 10-12, 2020 using an online survey. The results were weighted to ensure proportional responses. The Bayesian confidence interval for 1,000 interviews is 3.5, which is roughly equivalent to a margin of error of ±3.1 at the 95% confidence level.

Access the polling questions and results by Lincoln Park Strategies here.

Download the full infographic.

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This article appeared on TradeVistas.org. Republished with permission.

Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

2020 Democratic Candidates Won’t Find It So Easy To Be Anti-Trade

April 19th, 2019 John Brinkley Leave a comment

Maybe this time around, a Democratic presidential candidate will have the courage to be honest about trade.

Hillary Clinton supported free trade in general and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in particular until she ran for president in 2016, when she made the cold political calculation that continuing to support the TPP would result in a net loss of votes. So, she ran away from it though it were radioactive.

You may remember seeing delegates at the 2016 Democratic Convention holding signs that said “TPP” with a red line through it.

Bernie Sanders kept carping about “job-killing trade agreements” during his 2016 campaign, but never said which trade agreements he was talking about or what jobs they had killed. That didn’t matter to his followers, who thought everything he said was prophetic.

In many parts of the country, particularly Appalachia and the Midwest, it’s a lot easier to go with popular sentiment and blame NAFTA for the decline in manufacturing jobs than it is to explain to voters why that’s not true. A candidate would have to explain that jobs started migrating to Mexico three decades before NAFTA took effect; that U.S. manufacturing jobs peaked at 19.5 million in 1979 and had fallen to 17 million in 1994, when NAFTA took effect; and that they increased in number for the remainder of that decade. That takes time and requires the use of statistics that bore people. Moreover, if someone believes something strongly, he or she will continue to believe it even in the face of proof that it’s wrong.

Anti-trade politicians don’t use statistics, because there aren’t any that bolster their argument. Instead, they use evocative imagery that elicit an emotional reaction – pictures of closed factories with broken windows and weeds climbing the walls, abandoned communities, welfare lines.

Well, things have changed. It used to be that Republicans supported free trade in much larger numbers than Democrats. But as the 2020 election cycle gets under way, polls show that Democratic voters are more open to trade than they used to be.

A Gallup poll conducted in early February found that 74% of Americans saw foreign trade “as an opportunity for growth.” Three years earlier, the same question had gotten a 58% positive response rate.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in July 2018 found that 50% of Americans thought trade “has helped the United States.” That was up from 31% in June 2016.

These polls and others have found that a plurality of Americans think increasing tariffs is bad for the United States, that President Trump’s trade policies in general are bad for the U.S. economy and bad for respondents’ “personal financial situation.”

Nowadays, it’s President Trump and his followers who think the U.S. had gotten the short end of the stick on trade policy. They think the poor little United States has been bullied by the likes of Mexico, Canada, the European Union and China.

Sanders also has the distinction of agreeing with Trump, whom he despises, on trade policy. Trump even said so.

“I like Bernie. He is the one person that, on trade, he sort of would agree (with me) on trade. I am being very tough on trade. He is tough on trade,” Trump said last month.

That’s probably the last thing Sanders wanted to hear.

It will be several months before the 2020 presidential race gets going in earnest. In the meantime, the Peterson Institute for International Economics has published a guide to how each of the announced and expected-to-announce democratic candidates stands on international trade. You can see it here.

Oh, and one other thing: Go UVa!

About the author

John Brinkley was a speechwriter for U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and for Korean Ambasador Han Duk-soo during the Korean government’s quest for ratification of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement

This article originally appeared in Forbes.

NEW POLL: TRADE WAS A TOP ISSUE FOR MANY 2020 VOTERS

Nearly Half of U.S. Voters Identified Trade as a Top Issue in Presidential Election

Over 60 Percent of Republicans Said Trade Was “Most” or “One of Most” Important Issues

Trade as a Proxy for the General Economy

Buy American to Remain a Top Priority

Tariff Fatigue Could Go Either Way

The Next Four Years

1. Keep calm and carry on

2. Prosperity often follows uncertainty

3. Ignore red herrings, watch for black swans

4. Pay attention to investor incentives

5. To the victor go the construction spoils

6. Follow the money

7. Weather the storm (and hope it passes quickly)

The U.S.-China trade war and Brexit have generated quantifiable uncertainty in the marketplace, but the impact of those events is being eclipsed by the uncertainty generated by the global pandemic.

Taking an Economic Pulse

Stress Testing

An “Echo” Report

Pile on the Social Anxiety

From 9/11 to SARS to El Niño: An Entire World of Uncertainty

When Flat-Lining is Good

Trade Versus COVID-19

1. Big support for “Buy American.”

2. Strong belief that “Buy American” policies generate jobs

3. Americans would pay more to Buy American themselves

4. Trade as a crucial election issue for key sets of voters

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