Professor Morici writes/proposes policies that are completely opposite of what Adam Smith observed over 200 years ago. A nation is better off buying what it is not efficient at creating and selling what it is efficient at.
Large trade deficits tax economic growth by reducing the demand for U.S. goods and services. They also lower productivity by causing workers to shift from export and import-competing industries to less productive sectors of the economy. Were the trade deficit cut in half, GDP would increase by nearly $300 billion, or about $2000 for every working American. Longer term, trade deficits reduce U.S. investments in R&D. As a consequence of the cumulative effects of trade deficits over the last ten years, the U.S. economy in 2006 will be about $1.7 trillion dollars smaller than it otherwise would have been. See more at this
link.
There is neither the manufacturing capacity nor the workforce in-place in America that could replace what the Chinese provide so cheaply even in the intermediate term. You want a job sewing clothes? You want a job soldering circuit boards? Americans are able to stretch their stagnant income into the highest living standards on the Earth precisely because we do not waste our money on inefficient businesses that are protected and subsidized by a federal or state agency.
“You want a job sewing clothes? You want a job soldering circuit boards? “
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No offense, but have you bought (anything) recently?
Are you living in a cave?
Sewing clothes? Are you kidding? EVERY job in America is being lost.
All of it. Top to bottom.