If you take time to look at the data the USA has had a no tariff policy in place for decades and decades. THe problem with free trade deals is anyone older than 40 has seen the demise of the USA's economy but we are told there is no down side to these international agreements. Why does every agreement acknowledge that US workers will be displaced and money be aside for retraining. I mean how f-ed up is that?
Something we are not allowed to acknowledge in our society is that, like everywhere else, we have a sector of our population that will be unable to do more complex jobs simply because they lack the intelligence and work ethic. We pretend, for the sake of political correctness, that everyone is born equal, and therefore everyone can be trained for any task. Any free trade agreement should face this fact head on, and not run with the fallacy that we simply need to throw money at an inefficient government training program.
Especially since the premise is that productive and self-supporting line workers can be retrained as nuclear physicists and computer programmers.
I don't take a word they say seriously anymore.
American workers are my brothers and sisters. Bangladeshi, Indonesian, and Chinese workers are not. It's that simple.
If that's "protectionism", fine. Make the most of it.