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Agent Orange: Trump, Soft Power, and Exports

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  • Andrew K. Rose

Abstract

A country’s exports rise when its leadership is approved by other countries. I show this using a standard gravity model of bilateral exports, a panel of data from 2006 through 2017, and an annual Gallup survey which asks people in up to 157 countries whether they approve of the job performance of the leadership of China, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Holding other things constant, a country’s exports are higher if its leadership is approved by the importer; ‘soft power’ promotes exports. The soft power effect is statistically and economically significant; a one percent increase in leadership approval raises exports by around two-thirds of a percent. This effect is reasonably robust, and different measures of soft power deliver similar results. I conservatively estimate that the >20 percentage point decline in foreign approval of American leadership between 2016 (the final year of Obama’s presidency) and 2017 (Trump’s first year) lowered American exports by at least $3 billion.

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  • Andrew K. Rose, 2019. "Agent Orange: Trump, Soft Power, and Exports," NBER Working Papers 25439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25439
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    1. Rose, Andrew & Glick, Reuven, 2015. "Currency Unions and Trade: A Post-EMU Mea Culpa," CEPR Discussion Papers 10615, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Andrew K. Rose, 2016. "Like Me, Buy Me: The Effect of Soft Power on Exports," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 216-232, July.
    3. Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), 2014. "Handbook of International Economics," Handbook of International Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
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    8. Wellner, Lukas & Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Parks, Bradley & Strange, Austin M., 2022. "Can aid buy foreign public support? Evidence from Chinese development finance," Kiel Working Papers 2214, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Asmus, Gerda & Eichenauer, Vera & Fuchs, Andreas & Parks, Bradley, 2021. "Does India use development finance to compete with China? A subnational analysis," Kiel Working Papers 2189, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Laurent Didier, 2019. "Soft power and exporters behavior in international trade," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2595-2614.
    11. Plouffe, Michael, 2024. "The Public and the Assembly: Foreign Public Opinion and Voting in the UNGA," OSF Preprints pu2yv, Center for Open Science.
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    13. Eichenauer, Vera Z. & Fuchs, Andreas & Brückner, Lutz, 2021. "The effects of trade, aid, and investment on China's image in Latin America," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 483-498.
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    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F59 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - Other

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