Nixon also wanted a counter to Russia. The trade problem became fully swing when Congress and Bush made China a permanent favored trading nation. Giving factory shippers the big go-ahead.
So it remains, where are the good paying jobs in this country that free-trade shills promised would replace the low-paying jobs traded away?
Free trade shills - do some reporting. Check your local newspaper. Tell us what are the big job needs are in your area? Mine are automotive and truck driving.
"Tell us what are the big job needs are in your area? Mine are automotive and truck driving."
So, the steel tariffs didn't save the high paying steel mill jobs in your state?
That's the point.
Free trade promised that high tech jobs would replace all those factory jobs. In the age of NAFTA they believed that all those displaced factory workers could just go to community college and study Visual Basic and become web programmers. Well, now there is outsourcing and those high tech jobs are being shipped overseas.
Half your labor force is composed of people of average or sub average intelligence. Not everyone is college material. In the Golden Age such people could just get jobs at the factory and be stable, productive citizens for life. They could buy a house, go away on vacation, have health insurance, and retire on a pension. Now, they do crystal meth as they drift from McJob to McJob. One of these days, the Democrats are going to stress restoring the old days of the job at the factory over sodomite marriage. And when they do, get ready for New Deal II.