78 percent of Americans say sacrificing 1,000 foreign jobs for 1 U.S. job is worth it

Some Americans are against outsourcing jobs to foreign countries.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 5 August 2016

Americans are overwhelmingly eager to sacrifice foreign jobs if that's what it takes to help our own country's workers, reports a new study soon to be published in the journal International Organization.

The research findings reveal that opposition to free trade is widespread and crosses partisan lines. Most remarkably, some 78 percent of Americans said they would support a hypothetical trade policy even if it sacrificed 1,000 foreign jobs for every one job gained for U.S. workers, according to a nationally representative survey.

The poll also found only 11 percent believe trade benefits both the United States and our trading partners, while 30 percent said trade has no effect and 50 percent said it only helps foreigners. "Our domestic policy in the United States of America should be take care of our own first, PERIOD!" wrote one study participant to explain this anti-trade view. "When there is no longer a line at the unemployment office or people living in homeless shelters or children going to be hungry then Americans should consider a trade policy that benefits those that live outside our country."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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