“I don’t think America should be trading with nations like pre-WWII Japan.”
You do know that the United States sent an armed emissary (Commodore Perry) to open trade with Japan in the 1850’s? Other western countries followed suit. Prior to that Japan was pretty much a per-industrial feudal society that was closed to outsiders.
You don’t have to go too far back and you can find all kinds of trading relationships that would be distasteful by modern standards. (And I’m not necessarily referring to the slave-trade here.)
“You don’t have to go too far back and you can find all kinds of trading relationships that would be distasteful by modern standards.”
Not far at all, like yesterday.