“Everything comes at a cost, even the prosperity arising from free trade. Maximizing consumption needs to be balanced with the security afforded by a protected manufacturing base and industrial workforce. The debate tends toward absolutist arguments, but a prudent middle ground might be best.”
A middle ground would be to return to the tariff and trade policies in effect during the Ronald Reagan administration when the US had a robust manufacturing sector and thriving middle class.
For those who believe a mercantilist trade policy cannot lead to prosperity I submit:
1) China since the 1980’s.
2) The United States from 1865 to 1929.
An argument can be made that a fanatical attachment to pure free trade proved fatal to the British Empire. A commonsense use of industrial protection isn’t mindless self-destructive autarchy no matter what the ivory tower economist apostles of the One World economy might charge.