> The difference is, it wouldn't be okay if all our domestic steel production went overseas. Why, exactly, wouldn't that be okay? We'd only lose "all" domestic

> The difference is, it wouldn't be okay if all our domestic steel production went overseas. Why, exactly, wouldn't that be okay? We'd only lose "all" domestic production if foreign production were quite a lot cheaper, in which case the benefit from switching is huge and ongoing. If you're worried about wartime security, here are three ways to mitigate that concern: (1) Stockpile. Order enough (cheaper, now that it's imported) steel in advance that we'd be able to meet likely short-term needs. (2) Diversify. Keep an eye on the foreign supply and make sure that we're at least perserving the option to buy from more than one country so if one trading partner gets angry we can just switch to buying from another. (3) Be polite. Stop invading and/or bossing around every other country on the planet, so our trading partners aren't likely to have good reason to want to embargo trade with us. The fact that more international trade would mean we might have to actually care what other countries think is a pretty huge argument in favor of it.