Hostility to free trade exploded during the 2016 presidential election campaign. With President-elect Donald Trump having threatened to scrap trade deals in the works and re-open deals already agreed, some new research examines how trade came to get this recent black eye and, in the case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, what’s at stake. Cullen Hendrix, a nonresident fellow at the Washington’s Peterson Institute for International Economics, concludes that the protectionist surge in the U.S. doesn’t reflect a big change in public opinion or an anti-trade attitude among young voters. A separate paper from the Obama Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers takes a crack at quantifying some of the damage that could result if Trump dumps TPP. Free trade, not so unpopular Despite all the rhetoric, polling data repeatedly show most Americans view free trade and free trade agreements favorably. Since 2013, in fact, trade has been viewed more positively than during the economic expansion of the 1990s. Strikingly, Hendrix, of the PIIE, cites figures showing a positive attitude toward free trade peaks at age 18 and bottoms out in the mid-70s. Those attitudes shifted downward slightly during the recent election campaign, but a majority remained supportive. Absent a real shift in public opinion, Hendrix argues that a delayed reaction to the “China shock”—the widespread loss of manufacturing jobs due to China’s entry into the World Trade Organization—and the peculiarities of the U.S. electoral system combined to make the issue a force during the campaign. He points out that while free trade enjoys majority support in the U.S. it was viewed favorably by a majority in just one of 11 states identified as election “battlegrounds.” The electoral college system thereby projected the views on trade in states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania—“former industrial powerhouses that were staggered by deindustrialization well before the recent China shock”—onto the national stage. A White House Warning A paper from the CEA moves from the causes of the anti-trade phenomenon to the potential consequences. To make their, albeit partisan, point, the authors focus solely on Japan and estimate not only the damage of losing opportunities presented by TPP, but also what might happen should Asian countries move ahead with a regional trade agreement that excludes the U.S. They identify 35 goods-producing industries selling a combined $5.3 billion in goods exported to Japan would face an erosion of their market access relative to Chinese competitors. Under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a trade pact in the works involving Japan, China and several other Asian economies, would cut tariffs for Chinese goods headed for Japan, typically by 5 percent and in many cases by 10 percent.