Why would we celebrate?
There are economic reasons for that trade deficit: the Fed's inflationary policy going back to the seventies, high American taxes, and evermore burdensome regulations. All of those conspire to make American manufacturing more expensive than it need be.
American consumers do what's perfectly rational and try to buy products at lower costs. In other words, they are just adapting to the conditions our government has created.
The only thing I'll celebrate is that, so far, your type hasn't succeeded in punishing consumers trying to make the most of their wages. I certainly won't celebrate the fact that our government is actively trying to make our economic disadvantages even worse.
Read some economics and get over your fixation on free trade. That isn't the problem. If it were, Germany would be in worse shape than we are -- wages there are even higher than here -- yet, year in and year out, Germany runs a trade surplus.
Tell me how that happens.
One item you missed is that deficits drive production oversees. As Capital gets gobbled up by government, domestic companies have less access to capital to invest in country. This forces companies to seek production oversees.
Sounds like you’re using the consumer to give it an undeserved innocence.
Rewarding despotism & lawlessness with market access and allowing enablers of it to go untouched is not something that is correct. When trade is discussed, national security also has an important place within that discussion - even if it might counter the wishes of consumers unaware of the effects.
The only “economic disadvantage” of mention would be that our workforce doesn’t have to “know its place” for fear of retribution by businesses tightly integrated with the government. China, and other countries that have received work formerly done by First World countries, have that “advantage” of lesser freedom for all. Rewarding that lower level of freedom only encourages efforts to lower the US to the global level.