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This paper comprehensively examines public support for trade and globalization among US firms over the past twenty-five years, describing several patterns in public political activity that recur across major trade policies. Most strikingly, pro-trade firms have successfully organized coalitions of firms and associations to support trade liberalization across virtually every major trade issue of the past three decades. Many of these fifty-plus coalitions are issue-specific ad hoc groups, while others are longer lasting. These public collective efforts have not been matched by antitrade firms, which have formed only four public coalitions to oppose trade. As a result, I count over 4,300 unique firms that have publicly supported trade issues ranging from the Fast Track vote in 1991 to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but only 301 firms that have publicly opposed trade.
Using the data on coalition memberships, I construct a panel of public support for trade among US firms matched to data on firm size, revenues, employees, trade, and foreign subsidiaries by country. These data describe the characteristics of firms that have organized themselves to publicly advocate for global economic integration. Larger firms and multinationals are much more likely to support trade, even holding constant key characteristics of their industries; trade's opponents are smaller and less globally integrated. The specific contours of firms’ global networks drive firm support for trade agreements with particular countries. For example, the often small number of firms that own a subsidiary in a particular foreign market are dramatically more likely to support liberalization with that market.
I also connect trade coalition memberships to data on lobbying and contributions to show the key role of publicly pro-trade firms in other forms of political action. Strikingly, 88 percent of all lobbying on trade by corporations from 1998–2016 was undertaken by firms that have joined public efforts to support international trade. Firms that have publicly supported trade account for 56 percent of all PAC contributions in federal elections by corporations, while firms that have publicly opposed trade account for less than 1 percent. This reveals both the high level of political activity among trade's proponents, but also why politicians might be inclined to listen to their public campaigns.
These patterns occur at different levels and across different domains, but I argue that they...