“Why is it allowed to hamstring US companies to foreign competition, but then not hold foreign companies to the same stringent standards US companies are?”
Since 1990 the globalists in academia, Congress, and business have perverted the concept of free trade.
The founding fathers view of free trade had nothing to do with tariffs. Under British rule colonial merchants chafed at British government restrictions as to what nations they could trade with as well as crown grants of exclusivity for various products to individual politically favored companies. Free trade to our founders meant the freedom to trade with any nation, company or individual without government restriction.
For the first 130 years of the nation’s history high tariffs funded the operation of the federal government (there was no income tax) and prevented foreign nations from interfering with the development of industry inside the United States. During that period, US merchants freely traded around the world (except during the Civil War when the US government blockaded southern ports) while the US developed the largest manufacturing economy on the planet and the world’s highest standard of living. High tariffs did not prevent Yankee merchants from developing a global trading network.
The founders understood that tariffs represent a fee to foreign enterprises for access to a market. Why should a Chinese government subsidized factory have free access to the US market when a domestic US company pays a federal tax rate of 30%+ and state taxes for the privilege of selling its products to US citizens? The founding fathers would consider our current definition of “free trade” as being “no tariffs” laughable.
The elimination of tariffs benefits big banks, multinational corporations, and third world countries at the expense of the middle class in developed nations. If our founding fathers looked at the USA of today, and the undeclared economic war we are losing to China, they would immediately levy a stiff tariff on imported goods, reversing the failed 25 year experiment with no tariff free trade.
For an answer to your specific question, talk to the politicians owned by the “too big to fail” Wall Street banks and multinational corporations.
You need to write a book.