Environmental concern leads to trade skepticism on the political left and right

The environmental impacts of international trade are met by both public backlash against trade liberalization and efforts at greening international trade. Because public support is essential to environmental and trade policy-making alike, we examine the trade-environment nexus from a public opinion perspective. We investigate whether negative attitudes towards trade are in fact fueled by concern over its environmental consequences. We argue that environmental concern affects how citizens evaluate the costs and benefits of trade, and that such evaluation is moderated by political ideology. Our empirical analysis relies on a population-based survey experiment and a large representative survey in a small open economy, Switzerland. We show that environmental concern (serenity) leads to decreasing (increasing) appreciation of and support for international trade, with different manifestations of trade skepticism on the political right and left. Relating to the debate over environmental footprints of consumption, we do not find that citizens care more about environmental damage at home than abroad. The main policy implication of our findings is that policy-makers should assign high priority to greening global supply chains if they wish to sustain public support for liberal international trade policy, and that the public follows informational cues on the environmental impacts of trade.