Adam Smith's Return.(International Edition)

Byline: Stefan Theil

Europe now likes free trade more than America. Alas, there could be a backlash in both places.

After decades of American support for the free movement of goods, services and capital around the world, the tables appear to have turned. Nowhere has public backing for free trade been shrinking as rapidly as in the United States. According to this year's Pew Global Attitudes survey, only 53 percent of Americans agree that trade is good for their country, down from 78 percent in 2002. Contrast those numbers to the ones from Europe, where support for trade runs at 87 percent among Germans, 77 percent among Britons and 82 percent among the French. In countries like India, Korea and Nigeria, support for trade is even higher. Among thea24 countries surveyed, Americans lag behind everyone else in their support for continued free trade.

Fears that international trade could be the next casualty of the economic crisis have some of America's closest allies seriously worried. Already, canceled orders have sunk shipping rates to 21-year lows, and World Bank head Robert Zoellick says trade will contract next year for the first time since 1982. Now leaders are especially nervous over incoming U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign suggestions that he wouldareview the North American Free Trade Agreement and put America's other trade deals back on the negotiating table. In November, Britain's Gordon Brown warned Obama that he must reject a "beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism that has been a feature in transforming past crises into deep recessions." Germany's Angela Merkel, whose country depends on exports for more than one third of its economy, has repeatedly cautioned that a backlash against trade is the last thing anyone needs in a global downturn.

It might come as a surprise that Europe, with its long socialist and mercantilist traditions, is now championing free trade, while free-market America faces a clamor for new barriers. In part, that's because Europe has much more to lose from shrinking exports, especially now that the crisis is hitting more and more parts of the global economy. Foreign trade accounts for an average of 51 percent of GDP in European Union countries, compared with 13 percent in the United States. What's more, while Europe has rapidly globalized, the share of the U.S. economy derived from trade has risen only ...