Unfortunately, an article which praises a nation that has kept much of its manufacturing base, and that maintains a trade surplus, cannot be classified as conservative. People advocating those goals are automatically labeled as "protectionists" and "isolationists".
And Milton Friedman is famous for absurd (in the opinion of many) explanations of why trade deficits are just fine. "You have a trade deficit with your grocer".)
What Germany is practicing is a significant degree of economic nationalism, a terrible taboo among the American elite of both parties, and also many "conservatives".
I'm not saying I'm for “free trade”. But if the U.S. wouldn't import then there would be hardly any products in the U.S. because the EPA has crippled U.S. manufacturing and is about to basically ban all new coal power plants (C02 global warming regulations).
Just take one example, energy production. The democrats have stopped nuclear power plant building,refinery building, oil shale,oil drilling in the U.S. and off U.S. coasts.
This makes electricity which is needed to manufacture products 10 times to 100 times more expensive than it needs to be.
There are also 100,000’s of thousands of more pages of anti-business and pro union laws and regulations that make most manufactoring unfeasible.
What needs to be done first is repeal all laws to 1890 when the government was limited.