There are only win/lose situations and it's just a matter of degree of the win or loss. Some deals are pretty fair and the entity that actually wins does so almost imperceptively but he wins nonetheless. It's a zero sum game and has been since the beginning of time.
The “everybody can be a winner” is a construct of the left and the idiots that inhabit that deluded orbit have rarely worked a day in their life in the real world of business.
There is such a thing as a win/win transaction. But sacrificing your own interests for the other side is not how to obtain a win/win situation.
So you cannot conceive a situation where both sides benefit? So then how is a deal ever made?
Everybody can be a winner. But right now trade with China is set up so that China alone wins, and if you don’t do anything about that, you don’t get to also be a winner. Trade war is an improvement.
We have all experienced this professionally, in moving from an inferior job to a superior job. Your employer is better off and you are better off - that IS a win-win situation and there is nothing Swamp-like or CFR etc. about this reality.
Now, the concept of Pareto Optimality is agnostic toward social utility or costs. For years, as countries moved toward that blue Pareto line there were displaced workers whose jobs were either eliminated by technology or outsourced. The usual solution to that social cost was either "re-train for a higher paying job" or "learn to code." In a well-functioning society, that would work, like it did when we moved from an agrarian to industrialized nation. Furthermore, the introduction of the PC to the workplace did wonders for productivity (remember the typewriter?) but in many of those cases the workers DID upgrade their skills - admins learned how to use a word processor.
The huge difference in the case of American workers' jobs being mechanized or outsourced away or replaced by cheaper laborers domestically was that few cared...they became a voting block that was dropped in favor of other blocks, like GenXers, Boomers, etc. As a result, the nation moved toward Pareto Optimality with disregard to the forgotten American.
Trump is arguing that the social cost IS an important element in this debate. He is effectively saying that, in the short-run, America would be ok living in Pareto sub-Optimality to re-employ American workers. The unspoken linchpin in Trump's approach is that, once reengaged, that American worker (who, btw, comes from a mix of races, creeds, etc) can outptoduce more efficiently and with greater creativity any worker elsewhere and America would get back to Optimality.
Now, this MAY cause a displacement of workers in America who are basically illegal and the political re-capture by Trump et al of forgotten Americans from all walks of life who would likely vote enthusiastically for Trump et al...and THAT is the REAL reason why this is such a BFD.
Not in my experience. free and voluntary trade, by definition, should be win-win.