[baron816]

Companies don’t pass savings to consumers, competition does.

Why should American voters pay more for everything so that SWEs can be paid exorbitantly?

I shouldn’t need to explain to you why protectionism is bad. There’s 200 years of economic research on this and it shows that protectionism always backfires.

[mikkupikku]

You're just regurgitating old arguments which were once used to persuade Americans that outsourcing manufacturing to China was in America's best interest. Few Americans still find this persuasive, you can find senile babyboomers who still profess these kind of beliefs, but that's about it.

Besides, in trying to formulate an explaination for how offshoring is actually in America's interests, aren't you tacitly acknowledging that it is only right and reasonable to expect American voters to vote for what they perceive to be American interests?

[baron816]

The old arguments were right. Americans live materially better lives than anyone else. People are disenchanted because of the things that can’t be outsourced (housing, education, healthcare) have become so expensive.

The America First doctrine, in practice, has meant using power to do things that nominally appear in our interest, but don’t account for the second and third order effects. ie bully allied nations into accepting high tariffs without reciprocating, which doesn’t account for our own industries being hurt by higher input prices, a new reluctance to enter the US market, less competition, etc.

Protecting US workers from competition nominally helps those select workers, but it also makes them uncompetitive, steers businesses from setting up shop here at all, makes things more expensive for US consumers, and reduces innovation and upskilling.