Those figures prove NOTHING about Free Trade which is a boost to the consumer as any study of economics will show.
We don’t USE as much steel in products as we used to. Cars don’t have as much steel in them. Other products have replaced steel in a lot of things. Just as most products use less energy today they also use less metal.
America’s economy has always been one of innovation and creation of NEW industries. It becomes a loser when it gets the idea that old, obsolete industries should be protected. This drags down the overall growth rate because it leads to misallocation of resources and investment. It also means higher prices and less productivity even higher unemployment. Most critics of Free Trade have no idea what it is or what they are talking about.
Your post could have been written by a communist Chinese beaurocrat. I guess free traitors will never learn from history. Free traitors are tools of the globullist socialist.