I recently came across an article in Fortune magazine titled, Here's Why Donald Trump is Right About China. In the article, Chris Matthews talks about how trade between the US and China has decreased American innovation and as a result, the US has been worse off. He references a study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research that discusses how competition with Chinese exporters has diminished innovation in the US. The study was conducted by comparing research and development spending by US firms against increased import competition. The study showed that as import competition increased, R&D spending decreased in the US.
This study shows that US firms are finding problems in competition with the Chinese exporters, and that is reflected with the increased skepticism toward trade by the average American. While trade is beneficial in theory, something has to be said about the increasing skepticism toward trade by the American public. In a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 49% of the American general public said that trade is a "bad thing" compared to only 44% that said it is a "good thing". Imports from China have historically increased since the US opened to trade with them. In 2015, Chinese imports to the US reached an all time high. Could it be that lower and middle class Americans are no longer seeing any benefit from trade due to the increased Chinese imports?
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