You dont understand global trade. In FREE trade, everything is more efficient and prices go down, productivity goes up and with productivity, the standard of living.
In trade DEALS politician of government A makes a deal with politician of government B to allow products to be made in B provided Goldman Sachs of A is allowed to finance the deal and provided the brother-in-law of the B politician gets a brokers fee for arranging the deal.
The NAFTA originally proposed by Reagan was FREE trade. But by the time Clinton signed it many years later NAFTA had been stuffed with DEALS for labor unions, environmentalists, Chamber of Commerce, family members of politicians an enemies of politicians that needed to be bought off.
TPP never even started with FREE trade. Anything that requires 20,000 pages plus adendums and appendices cannot possibly be FREE trade.
Trade DEALS between politicians do not bring down prices. FREE trade does.
I don't agree at all. The de industrialization of the USA is hurting national secueity and rendering a large portion of the population unemployable and ripe for socialism. Free Trade is ruining the USA.
Your view is academically correct but it is missing a dimension of reality.
In another context, why do you think electronic connectors are often made to connect in only one way? Answer: guard against human error.
In the context of trade deals, the notion of ‘Free Trade’ has no design to guard against subversion. There is no design principle that will keep a system of Free Trade in balance.
How would one design a free trade policy to limit human malfeasance?
I am not sure there is a solution because it is in practice unachievable. Hence, recognizing ‘Free Trade’ is but a theory to be admired but is of little practical use.
Trump’s trade is ‘Smart Trade’ in lieu of ‘Dumb Trade’.
As historians assess the era of free trade experimentation, I believe they will summarize that the effect was to shift labor costs to where they were minimal causing previous host countries to degenerate in both industrial capacity and ability; law of unintended consequences at work.