That's your take-home message from this?
America is in trouble because it can't compete. Its industry is weighed down with taxation, over-regulation, unionization and an increasingly poorly educated or tax-demotivated workforce.
Forcing Americans to buy their stuff from feather-bedded internal suppliers would solve these problems how?
The only reason you guys have any standard of living at all is because other people make stuff well and cheaply.
Don't like it? Try reducing your internal barriers to wealth-production. Don't whine about the competition.
Bang! That comment hit the 10 ring! Well said!
You are British from the flag on your profile. Your nation was an economic leader as well once under a regime of promoting internal trade and discouraging imports from outside of the empire. In the USA it is sometimes refered to as a Hamiltonian trade policy. I’m afraid you’ve lost sight of the reality around you — when the US and the UK were successful they were more protectionist.
It’s nice that someone occasionally reminds the protectionists here what the real problems are. I would add that the reduction of our productive capacity has been a goal long pursued by the left.