The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been busily polling the American public, and their latest survey is about international trade. It’s become surprisingly popular ever since the trade-warrior-in-chief started his anti-trade jihad from the White House:
How about that? Trump’s bellowing seems to have had the opposite effect from what he wanted. Suddenly everyone is a fan of trade. Even Republicans. But before we draw any conclusions from this, here’s another chart:
This is not quite so dramatic, but nonetheless it shows that support for higher immigration levels has gone up from 20 percent to 28 percent since 2016. Throughout the entire post-9/11 period, the number of people who want to decrease immigration has plummeted from 58 percent to 29 percent.
So what’s going on? Do things get more popular the more that Trump bashes them? That’s my working hypothesis so far, but more empirical evidence is needed. I’ll get on that later today.
