The democRATs want a nation of pirates and fraudsters. They think there will always be enough people to steal from.
What a country needs to be wealthy even more than natural resources is freedom. Freedom to own property, businesses, the fruits of one’s labor. Import that to developing nations and they would lift themselves out of poverty.
Europe's suicide doesn't have much to do with economic self-sufficiency where a country mines, grows and builds everything itself. North Korea does that. So did Albania under its Communist rulers. Countries that follow that model end up very poor. There are good arguments to be made that trade hollows out the middle class but the answer is not a country doing everything itself. Europe's suicide is due to mass immigration? Mass immigration was prompted by non-replacement birthrates. Non-replacement birthrates was arguably prompted by the cradle-to-grave Welfare State that also is destroying the economy because it is built on having more young workers than old and non-working takers. In the 1800s, free trade without a Welfare State created a massive increase in national wealth although it was very disruptive and created boom and bust cycles that prompted the Welfare State. The Welfare State worked for a while because it leeched off of residual Capitalist wealth. But that gravy train is over and Western society is now paying the piper. The answer is not national autarky plus a Welfare State. That would be a disaster.
The DSA is winning in the Demoncrap Party with full red blooded COMMUNISM.