Who votes for free trade and when? Geopolitics as the source of legislative preferences on free trade agreements

Abstract

Why do legislators support some free trade agreements but oppose others? Despite a wide variation in legislative support for free trade agreements, the heterogeneous preferences of legislators have received little attention in the literature, which largely focuses on general trade policy preferences of legislators and individual voters. We bring in geopolitical factors as a key source of legislative preferences on specific free trade agreements. Using voting records of the U.S. House representatives on all major bills related to free trade agreements, we find that the geostrategic importance of potential trading partner has a substantial effect on voting for trade agreements. We find that legislators become less sensitive to their constituents’ economic interests when considering trade agreements with allies or countries with closely aligned interests. This highlights the importance of examining security externalities of trade cooperation.