Dr. Menzie Chinn of Wisconsin-Madison hypothesizes that Democrats may have opposed FTAs not because they have protectionist sentiments, but because they prefer multilateralism:
In the wake of the midterm elections, and the failure to renew Vietnamese PNTR, there has been a lot of talk about how more protectionist Democratic lawmakers are…While the rhetoric from some quarters of the Democratic Party is more protectionist than from the Republican Party, I think the story is a little more complicated than initially appears to be the case, although I will not claim to have the answer to the question…
[I]t’s wrong to equate all FTAs with freer trade. Indeed, the proliferation of FTAs poses a number of well-known problems for the global economy…
So, just because American business interests favor these pacts, while labor often opposes, it’s not clear free trade is enhanced by such initiatives; in other words, one should not confuse…
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