But if the rest of the world makes less than Americans do, there will be very few things they can buy from America. In fact, they don't buy much from America now. Adding up American imports and exports the former vastly outstrips the latter.
The annual trade deficit is nearing $600 billion with a cumulative balance of 3.1 trillion.
The market glut of workers has driven the price of wages down, especially among higher wage jobs, those that haven't been outsourced. Remember, there are certain things we need to survive that can't be imported at dirt prices. Few can afford medical care now.
When we buy less from abroad they can only buy less from us.
Why should we care what they buy from us, little as it is now, when we buy from each other just fine?
The wages paid to workers don't seem to be generated by foreign trade, per the deficit above. They seem to be generated by buying and selling from and to one another right here in America.
We can afford more expensive American made items. The workers' wages will shrink relative price of needs and luxuries, when the industries and production remain here in America.
The only things we need foreign trade for is what we can't produce here. The way we are doing it is not the traditional way of foreign trade in America. It is a dangerous new experiment that only resembles the traditional American way.
I'd like to point out here that the Traditional way of American trade, both foreign and domestic, made America the nation that became a world power.
You think we can keep our world power status when we are reduced to third world wages and standard of living? Do you want America to be a third world power?
If we redirect our industry through tariff policy to make more trivial crap that reduces our overall productivity since the optimal allocation of resources is being moved away from.
I'm sorry. I can't make any sense of the sentence above.
Economic policy cannot be determined by Spite or False Sentimentality.
Of course not. Economic policy is determined by mathematical logic, and the numbers of "free trade", as it is being practiced right now, don't add up.