When we decided it was immoral to pay people below a minimum wage, we had to have enacted equivalent import tariffs to offset any cheaper foreign labor that was

When we decided it was immoral to pay people below a minimum wage, we had to have enacted equivalent import tariffs to offset any cheaper foreign labor that was impossible to compete with. Instead we exported the suffering and rode the gravy train of cheap imports. It's too late to do anything about China, they compete on much more than labor now, but allowing local manufacturing to compete fairly on the world stage within the bounds of accepted cultural values, is the first step to recovery.