At the rate we are de industrializing we may be an agro service economy before to long. I want to stop that, you don't.
The Smoot-Hawley lie you throw around has been debunked.
U.S. goods imports declined from $5.3 billion in 1929 to just $1.7 billion in 1933, while U.S. goods exports fell from $4.4 billion in 1929 to a mere $1.5 billion in 1933.
If these drops were so great and so influential, why doesn't Milton Friedman mention them? First, in comparison to the total economy ($50B GNP), foreign trade was a small part of the United States economy. Second, the total balance of trade deficit went from (0.9 billion to 0.2 billion). In other words, the United States was losing less money because of Smoot-Hawley. It was in aggregate better off.
LOL, a trade deficit isn’t “losing” money. That is a complete, economically ignorant myth propagated by the likes of Donny Tramp (he knows real estate, but not much else). It just means you’re buying more goods than you’re selling. BUYING. People don’t buy things unless they want them. It makes them happy. Protectionists want to steal away Americans’ right to buy the things they want. That’s not freedom, that’s big-government regulation. That’s why Sanders likes it too.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/are-trade-deficits-really-bad-news
Nations do not trade with each other; people do. America’s trade deficit with the rest of the world is only the sum of the individual choices made by American citizens. Those choices, to buy an import or to sell an export, only take place if both parties to the transaction believe it will make them better off. In this way, the “balance of trade†is always positive.
The only reason the U.S. trade deficit is bad news is that so many people believe it is bad news.