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Free Trade works only when countries are equal trading partners.

An example of free trade working is this:

Country #1 produces WidgetA at a cost of $1.00 and WidgetB at a cost of $3.00.
Country #2 produces WidgetA at a cost of $3.00 and WidgetB at a cost of $1.00.
By specializing in production and trading both countries enjoy more WidgetAA and more WidgetBs and at a lower cost.

An example of Free trade not working is this:

Country #1 produces WidgetA And WidgetB.
Country #2 produces neither, but has abundant excess labor.
By Trading, Country #2 produces both WidgetA and WidgetB cheaper than Country #1 did.
To make matters worse Country #2 doesn't buy any products from Country #1 with the proceeds of Widgets they sold to Country #1.
Instead Country #2 use the proceeds to buy the manufacturing firms that manufacture other widgets in Country #1 and dismantle them and move them Country #2.
Country #1 gets cheap widgets initially but soon has high unemployment and no money to buy widgets from country #2.

I love this example.

So are tariffs in demand?

Making companies search for American made manufacturing for all the components necessary to complete the contract seems on the face of it like a good idea at first glance. However in order to qualify for the (Marxist moslem American hater) contract, it puts the fragile manufacturing base we have remaining here in America through hoops and red tape that will end in exactly what you state.

Where do we go from here?

Am I way off base here?

Exactly .. and of course there are a couple more free trade bills soon to be signed (left over from the GWB administration ..)

Washington has given away manufacturing jobs and then they wonder why there is no recovery.. how do we elect such dumb people.???. or are they all playing dumb so they can continue to fed at the hands of all those lobbyists??

Or, to put it another way, Country #1 has Union labor, which hikes its benefits and wages and overhead (Union Bosses/Political Contributions) so high that the company moves to where there's super-cheap labor, has to pay a lot of transport costs, and STILL delivers the product at lower cost and at a reasonable profit.

Meanwhile, back in Country #1, the Unions decide to infiltrate government at ALL LEVELS, so they can continue their extortion, this time at the un-limited upside potential at the command of Taxpayers (simply by paying off politicians through contributions and quid pro quo Legislation to protect the money machine).

Is this a grand idea, or what?