As for your last paragraph…in those days the US was the only country in the world that could manufacture stuff. Africa and Asia and Eastern Europe had been wrec

As for your last paragraph…in those days the US was the only country in the world that could manufacture stuff. Africa and Asia and Eastern Europe had been wrecked and would remain devastated by imperialism, war, failed attempts to try to make a planned economy work, etc. Over the past few decades, the rest of the world has managed to develop and compete. In regards to making global trade expensive again….the policies that the United States is pursuing won’t make global trade more expensive. It will just make trade with the United States more expensive. The other countries will continue to trade with each other cheaply and will continue to gain prosperity and continue to advance. It is possible we may see a world in which the United States has stagnated to not compete with the rest of the world. And a world where maybe the dollar has been replaced with the euro or some other currency as the reserve currency. If that is the case…well things won’t be too good for Americans to say the least.