Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1201-14.htm

Pew Poll on Trade Doesnt Pass the Sniff Test

By Norman Solomon

     Drawing on poll numbers gathered last year, the influential Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press waited until the recent
trade summit in Miami to put out a report under headlines that
proclaimed Support for Free Trade and Miami Protests Do Not Reflect
Popular Views. But a much more fitting headline would have been:
Report Conclusions Do Not Reflect Actual Data.

     The first sentence of the Nov. 20 report claimed direct relevance
to current disputes over proposals for a Free Trade Area of the
Americas: The anti-globalization protesters who have clogged the
streets of Miami voicing opposition to negotiations to create a free
trade area in the Western Hemisphere are not speaking for the strong
majorities throughout the region who believe trade is both good for
their countries and for them personally.

     Interesting. But true?

     Both of the survey questions cited by the report asked people in
10 nations of the hemisphere about the growing trade and business
ties between their country and other countries. But the report
overlaid the replies about generic commerce onto particular types of
trade arrangements -- free trade deals such as the proposed FTAA.

     After contacting the Pew Research Center about this evident
disconnect, I heard back from Bruce Stokes, a columnist for the
National Journal and former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations. Hes now a Pew Research Center fellow.

     Stokes responded that we did not poll on the issue of the rules
of trade and so did not report results to that effect. Nor did we
report people's views about free trade. We merely reported that
people generally think greater trade is better for their countries and
their families.

     Yet the report went far beyond merely gauging attitudes toward
generic trade. From the outset, it referred to protesters voicing
opposition to negotiations to create a free trade area -- and equated
support for trade with support for free trade.

     The equation is more than a little skewed. Most people I know
werent in Miami to discuss the abstract issue of trade, but rather the
very concrete set of rules contained in the FTAA, said Karen
Hansen-Kuhn, trade program coordinator at The Development GAP. To
suggest that the anti-corporation globalization movement is anti-trade
is completely off-base, said Sarah Anderson, a fellow at the Institute
for Policy Studies who has been following FTAA negotiations since 1994.

     Yes, there is a tiny subset that calls for less global trade,
based primarily on the argument that long-distance transport of goods
has detrimental environmental impacts, Anderson noted. But the vast
majority of people in the streets in Miami and at similar protests
around the world are not opposed to international trade and investment.
They just want different rules to ensure that the benefits of this
economic activity actually benefit ordinary people instead of the
rich.

     Similar comments came from author Edward S. Herman, an economist
and media analyst who is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton
School, University of Pennsylvania. What is super-deceptive about the
Pew questions is the conflating of growing trade with free trade
agreements, which is like conflating fighting against crime with
support of capital punishment, he said.

     Herman added: The critical failure of the Pew questions is that
they dont ask about the rules that are installed in free trade
agreements like NAFTA and the proposed FTAA agreement -- that
subordinate national sovereignty to the demands of foreign investors
and traders, impose rules like honoring patent monopoly rights and
limit government rights to tax or regulate foreign investors. A more
honest question would ask about tradeoffs between national sovereignty
and the rights of foreign investors and traders, not one that asks,
essentially, if you favor more rather than less trade.

     The FTAA is highly controversial in Brazil -- one of five South
American countries highlighted in the report from the moneyed Pew
Research Center. But Maria Luisa Mendonca, director of the Network for
Social Justice and Human Rights, based in Brazil, told me that the
surveys research has nothing to do with the FTAA.

     Brazil is a crystal-clear example of how the Pew report obscures
key realities. In early November, Brazils president traveled to
Africa to increase trade and also cultural and political relations with
African countries, Mendonca points out. There were no protests in
Brazil against that. On the other hand, a grassroots plebiscite that
included over 10 million people last year showed that over 98 percent
of the voters were against the FTAA and wanted the Brazilian government
to leave the negotiations.

     Without any tally of peoples views about free trade
arrangements, the Pew report was incapable of backing up its lead
assertion -- that free trade opponents are not speaking for strong
majorities throughout the region who believe trade is both good for
their countries and for them personally.

     Any difference that may exist in public attitudes toward trade
and free trade, Stokes acknowledged, is a distinction that we did
not poll on. But, in that light, how could the report base its
conclusions on the assumption that no such distinctions significantly
exist?

     In a response via email, Stokes said it was fair for us to say
that many of the protesters did oppose trade, that that is certainly
how many were perceived by the media and that we were merely pointing
out that such opposition to trade is not shared by publics in the
region.

     Lets unpack that statement: Without any supporting data in a
report headlined Support for Free Trade, the spokesperson for the Pew
Research Center contends that many of the protesters did oppose
trade, not only whats known as free trade. In effect, the
report -- while accepting without any hard evidence the media
stereotype of protesters as simply anti-trade -- found that the public
does not identify favorably with views that media have imputed to the
protesters.

     The next time a pollster, journalist or politician equates all
trade with corporate-friendly trade pacts, you might recall the
Through the Looking-Glass words of Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word,
it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.

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*  Background link: Pew Research Center report
--- Support for Free Trade: Miami Protests Do Not Reflect Popular
Views
http://people-press.org/commentary/print.php3?AnalysisID=74

*  Background link: New analysis of FTAA politics
--- FTAA Ship Runs Aground, But Party Goes On by Tom Hayden
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17284

*  Background links: Police actions at Miami protests
--- Miami Crowd Control Would Do Tyrant Proud by Robyn E. Blumner
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1130-07.htm
--- The War on Dissent by Naomi Klein
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1125-08.htm
--- The Miami Model by Jeremy Scahill
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1125-13.htm
--- Militarization in Miami by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1126-03.htm

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Norman Solomons weekly syndicated column is archived at
<www.fair.org/media-beat>. His latest book, co-authored with Reese
Erlich, is Target Iraq: What the News Media Didnt Tell You.