This is exactly what globalization is about. LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD and the only way to do that is bring down the life-styles of Americans. I saw an article on FR that claimed in China they paid something like .36 cents an hour for their slave labor. We have a long way to drop and obviously equalization has not taken place yet.
Or, Americans keep themselves competitive by being superior in some way that justifies the difference... Or we convince the whole GLOBE not to buy from the lowest bidder (or lowest safety/environmental/rights standards [e.g., China])... Or be the ones who can still make money while the wages are low--the owners...
But the globalization genie is out of the bottle, and protectionism isn't going to stop it. Typical protectionism can't stop Germans from buying where they get the best deal, even if it hampers Americans from doing so. "Buying American," just to do so, doesn't really help. TANSTAAFL!
If globalization/equalization continues, and Americans can't provide a good argument why they should be paid so much more than other workers, then the only way I see Americans maintaining their current standards of wealth is to forget jobs. Wages will be minimal. Americans must be the owners, getting a profit by using low-wage workers...and that's what the CEOs, etc., are doing now.