trade is only important if you can produce everything in house affordably.
A country like the US can produce nearly anything affordably, and thus trade imports are not necessary.
A country like the US can produce nearly anything affordably, and thus trade imports are not necessary.
You could say exactly the same thing about the Soviet Union or China, yet they didn't have a very high standard of living. What matters is not what you can produce, but what you can produce best. Unless you can do everything better than anyone else anywhere in the world, then imports are absolutely necessary. And those lazy domestic workers who want to whine about not having jobs while not being willing to compete for them are just asking you to carry them by paying higher prices.