>I believe the issue might be that while the US has enjoyed the surpluses of globalism, it has not redistributed that surplus well. Note that with respect to g

>I believe the issue might be that while the US has enjoyed the surpluses of globalism, it has not redistributed that surplus well. Note that with respect to globalism, it has also allowed a significant amount of companies to dodge both environmental and worker safety policies by moving to a country who considers the bulk of their population expendable. Tariffs against imports from countries like that make a lot of sense because we already take that into account for domestic production (which drives the costs of those goods up); having free trade with countries that do this severely undermines the environmental (and human rights) protection that Western countries have successfully implemented over the last 50 years. Couple that with the fact that when your country loses a critical mass of manufacturing capability the supply chain goes with it, and the fact that a government needs to provide the people who just plain aren't smart enough to benefit from higher education (which arguably comprises a significant fraction of people in Western universities today because they're stuck in jobs that don't make enough to pay down student loans, which means their degrees were worthless) with something to do or face significant instability later.