Quote: The Americans who bought products made with leather from GST AutoLeather will save some of their own money in the form of less expensive products thanks to a more efficient factory in Mexico
That is a fine and dandly line of thought until you multiply the loss of GST with thousands of other plants going the same route. How long will it be until your job is the one being offshored and your ox is now being gored?
A net gain multiplied a thousand times is a larger net gain. The point of my previous post was that through cheaper goods, Americans wind up with surplus money to spend satisfying other demands, and in the process they employ more Americans than originally, and they own more wealth than originally. You may argue that employment in a foreign factory subtracts from work in an American factory; however that is only half of the picture. The other half is that in order to pay for imports from foreign factories, Americans produce what is most cost-effective for us to produce. When we buy the (least expensive) imports from the (most cost-efficient) foreign factories, we pay with American dollars, and those dollars are ultimately used by foreigners to buy the least expensive, most cost-efficient goods produced by the best and most efficient Americans.
The net result is win-win by the same process which makes specialization and division of labor extremely effective. I.E., I make what I make best, and you make what you make best, and we trade. An example is shoe-making. If you make your own shoes (to the same quality as store brands), you will expend far more labor and capital to do so than if you had bought a pair from a shoe-maker. (If you are a shoe-maker, a different product is used as an example) Ergo, you save money by buying shoes from someone who makes them the most efficiently out of everyone else. That extra money is a net gain that resulted from trade.
In the same manner, producers and consumers in two countries yield a net gain through trade.