It is by now a near commonplace that the ‘globalization’ and ‘offshoring’ manias of the 1990s and after did not go as planned. China indeed grew, but it did not become America’s junior partner as its cheerleaders once cheerfully – not to say arrogantly – predicted. Prices, meanwhile, indeed dropped, but so did American wages and salaries, such that even the cheaper goods came to be priced out of reach for near all but those willing to rack up consumer debt in their purchase.
The Biden Administration and many bipartisan Members of Congress, to their credit, at last have awakened to the dangers the past thirty years have now brought. They see the skewing of incomes and wealth and attendant dysfunctions that the Clinton/Bush version of ‘free trade’ has brought. They also see now the national security threat this all poses, not to mention the inflationary consequences of dwindling productive capacity.
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