Lets say the Widget Corporation of America in Skokie Illinois makes widgets
It decides to ship its jobs overseas where widgets can be made and imported cheaper than producing locally, then sell them cheaper and double its profit margin. The widget makers in the US lose their jobs, consumers save a bit on widgets and widget executives double their salaries. Investors pour money into the WIDGT stock and the index rises at 4x the rate of inflation. Soon forerign investors and foreign executives are involved and the Widget Corporation of America merges with a chinese conglomerate. Soon all the savings are passed onto some upper class of chicom billionaires, who ship their jobs out to vietnam. Americans pay slightly less for widgets but the only job they can get is stocking widgets onto shelves at costco
Trade protectionism can't be calculated on reciprocal tariffs alone. Trade imbalance might not be a real measure either, see Lesotho, but you simply cannot quantify the chinese undermining of American markers by any realistic metric. How do you add up the effects of tariffs, subsidizing electric cars, dumping cold rolled steel, operating without living wages or worker safety or pensions or protecting the environment.
We couldn't afford to continue playing the zero sum game of free trade. We were losing and getting hollowed out. Does that mean the blunt instrument of tariffs will solve it? Doubtful. And it may do more harm, and the worst scenario is Trump's plan implodes and hes forced to rescind them after damage is done. I don't know how it will end. Its experimental surgery to solve a chronic condition
And yet the non-Americans here have been twisting themselves in knots and getting their posts reported from rage in order to die on the hill that there is no imbalance against America anywhere