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Does America View Its Trade Relationships as Fair?

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Does America View Its Trade Relationships as Fair?

Does America View Its Trade Relationships as Fair?

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

Understandably, most people are not experts on the subject of trade.

But while the average person won’t likely be able to guess the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, perceptions of trade relationships in the public eye are still a crucial indicator.

If the majority of Americans think they are getting the short end of the stick on international trade, this sentiment ultimately affects how politicians campaign, how policy decisions are made, and the success of the wider economy.

U.S. Perceptions of Trade

In today’s chart, we break down the data from a recent Gallup poll on how Americans view the country’s trade relationships.

At a high level, here is how it looks by country:

U.S. Trade PartnerFairUnfairDon't know / No opinion
Canada65%24%10%
European Union56%29%15%
Japan55%33%12%
Mexico44%46%11%
China30%62%9%

Source: Gallup, June 18-24, 2018

The majority of Americans think relationships with Canada (65%), the European Union (56%), and Japan (55%) are fair. When it comes to Mexico, respondents are split (44% fair, 46% unfair).

Meanwhile, it’s clear that most Americans think they are getting the short end of the stick with China, with 62% of respondents describing the relationship as unfair.

The China Problem

China is America’s largest trading partner, so this negative sentiment has meaningful implications.

The balance of trade that the U.S. has with China is also crystal clear: in 2017, the two countries traded $636 billion of goods, but the vast majority of this number comes from Chinese imports into the United States:

Trade gap

Most economists actually think that trade deficits are less important than they appear, but this trade gap is also visceral for many people. After all, U.S. exports barely make a dent in the mix, and this sends a message that America is “losing”.

Between the above trade deficit, intellectual property issues, and jobs going overseas, it’s understandable why the perception of Chinese-U.S. trade is under fire in terms of public sentiment.

And with the start of the recent trade war, the view on China could sour even further.

The Partisan Perspective

Interestingly, Democrats and Republicans have very different views on U.S. relationships, including the one with China:

U.S. Trade PartnerFair (Democrats)Fair (Republicans)
Canada82%49%
European Union70%42%
Japan65%46%
Mexico59%29%
China38%21%

Source: Gallup, June 18-24, 2018

Comparing Republicans and Democrats, three different relationships have opinion gaps of about 30%: Canada, European Union, and Mexico. In all cases, Democrats favored the relationships far more than Republicans.

That said, when it comes to China and Japan, the parties are slightly more aligned.

Only a minority in both parties thought the U.S. trade relationship with China was fair, with 21% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats in agreement.

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Markets

Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.

All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.

RankCompanyYTD Change (%)
1Nvidia90.8
2Meta44.3
3Amazon16.9
4Microsoft12
5Google0.2
6Apple-6.7
7Tesla-28.5

From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.

Nvidia and Meta Lead

Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.

The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.

Apple and Tesla in the Red

Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.

Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.

Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.

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