You made a good point, and didn't even know it.
How much are Ford and GM going to pay in taxes while running huge losses?
Zero.
How much FICA and income tax will be paid by the laid-off workers?
Zero.
How much will we spend on unemployment, health care and welfare benefits for these workers and their families?
Megabucks.
This is good for our country as a whole exactly how?
Wiser tax and trade laws would encourage manufacturers to locate here. Of course, efficient non-union businesses would still crush the union dinosaurs- but the jobs would stay in this country.
If Ford shuts down a plant, and Honda reopens it the next day with a fairly compensated non-union workforce, that's good for the country. And Honda will be forced to pay fair wages, or the best machinists and assemblers will go work for Toyota or Subaru.
If Ford shuts down a plant, the workers end up on welfare or in dead-end service jobs, and the plant is razed and the high-tech machinery sold to China, that is bad for the country as a whole.
Honda won't be forced to do anything. If the unemployed machinists don't want a job, they can just sit on their fat butts drawing those wonderful union benefits. The glut of available labor is going to depress wages. Thousands of applicants for tens of jobs puts the employer in control of compensation.
Toyota and Nissan aren't about to re-open closed Ford or GM plants, nor will they be willing to hire the ex Ford or GM employees no matter what the tax policies are. (Honda, for some reason, is willing to build in unionized areas). So Nissan locates in Tennessee or Mississippi, and Toyota goes to Texas or Tennessee, the Koreans go to Alabama, but no one is going to want the Ford or GM plant in Atlanta, or any of the other factories that the dying companies are shutting down.
At this point, even protectionist duties aren't going to help the Americans.