we need sane trade policy, and we don't have it. we signed NAFTA in the hopes of using Mexico as a source for low skilled, lower wage manufacuring jobs right on our border, in part to stem immigraion into the US by providing a source of jobs in Mexico. so then what did we do? we signed free trade agreements with China, and all the manufacturing jobs are fleeing Mexico to China, and the Mexicans are coming over the border to take US service jobs, deepressing those wages. does that policy make any sense?
we should have tariffs on chinese manufactured products, period.
you attitude basically says "we give up" - let's race to the bottom.
Define sane. What is more sane than free trade? Isolationist policies like those I see advocated on this board are nuts. We can isolate ourselves into non-competitiveness. Do you seriously think that GM could survive without its exports? And if it could, how would we survive without all of the parts GM imports. The world has changed. Get with it.
I used to buy into that whole "race to the bottom" thing, but now I don't. I live in America, I have access to the latest in cheap technology, the internet, and universities.
Globalization means wrenching change, but it also means new markets for our goods (like, say, India). Maybe the glass isn't half empty. Maybe it's a "race to the top". Who can make the best coolest products for the least amount of money, in the most effecient manner? We're not dead yet.