Perfect example of was I was talking about 10-15 years ago when arguing with the “Free Traders” where the manufacturing goes the research and development follows. Lose your manufacturing and you will soon lose all the advantages you once had. Next to go is dominance in higher education.
What you said.
The reason our unemployment rate is so high, is because we keep sending jobs to China.
The reverse is true: If we initiate a trade war, we will begin making things in America again. Jobs will increase.
Commence the trade war.
Massive corporate taxation, limitless legal vulnerability, crushing environmental regulation and pro-Union arbitrary Government: these are why industry chooses to locate away from the USA.
On FR recently we had the example of Ronnie Bryant: forced to shutter his coal mining project and lay off hundreds of workers and ancillary staff.
He had spent his life in the business, but was finally forced to quit - effectively by the EPA.
He is ground zero for what I'm talking about: a small businessmen crushed by the parasitic forces of Government.
At the bottom of that link are an amazing set of comments, where other businessmen share their stories of being forced out of business by Government. Not (for instance) by the Chinese - but by Government. It makes compelling reading.
Protectionism would be the final nail in the coffin. The last vestiges of American industry would be turned into feather-bedded welfare cases, and freeborn Americans would be forced to buy their stuff from the Government store.