>have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA The US very much still has a domestic manufacturing sector, it just happens to be the

>have no substantive domestic production, in a nation as large as the USA The US very much still has a domestic manufacturing sector, it just happens to be the case that fewer people work in it.[1] In fact the US manufacturing output is the second largest in the world, on par with China.[2] Insofar as the US does struggle, I don't see the connection to free trade. The US has one of the largest domestic economies, and free trade only comprises about 23% of the American GDP. That makes the US the third least free trade reliant country in the world. Compare that to Germany or South Korea, two strong manufacturing countries in the developed world, where trade is about 4 times(!) as important. [1]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IPMAN [2]https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scorecard-how-the-us-compares-to-18-other-nations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/global-manufacturing-scor... [3]https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=false https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?most_rec...