No, you got it wrong. We trade because we hvae something they need and they have somethign we need. That raises the standard of living in both countries.
It’s not free trade that has caused the problem. The requirements and obligations our stupid government has put on manufacturers and other businesses, plus the way unions hold htem hostage, have made making things in America unsustainable.
Protectionism just makes that worse. It makes the raw materials (like Taiwanese minerals for silicon chips) more expensive, whcih drives up the price of the good manufactured with those goods. All that happens whan you make those more expensive is that the domestic goods increase too (though perhaps not as much.) Instead of protecting jobs, it makes goods less affordable.
This is what has happened through out history.
You hve been soled a bill of goods by power hungry politicians, bureaucrats, and corportaists who think they can run your life and your business better than you can.
Nope.
Free Trade made Communist China a superpower. You OK with that?
We have had to increase our military budget by hundreds of billions of dollars to account for that. Where are the savings.
Our Middle class has been shrinking and under stress for generation partially because of free trade policies.
To the point that young people can’t afford to have kids. What is the cost of that?
I trust Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln had the right policies.