I have seen a lot of know-it-all democrat voters posting in the last few days about how Trump's economic strategy is bound to fail and those who voted for him for economic reasons are fools. Obviously I am extremely sceptical of these people, as economic literacy has never been a strong point of progressives (not to mention how they are all suddenly experts, like how they were for virus propagation, climate change, etc.).
Nonetheless, I myself am no economist. Can somebody with a better understanding explain the strategy to me, and also any potential ways in which it COULD backfire in the way progressives are suggesting?
My understanding is that America's post-WW2 policy was to deliberately cripple its domestic manufacturing and offshore a lot of it in order to buoy up allies against the Soviets and help war-wracked countries rebuild. I think it makes a lot of political and strategic sense to start bringing that back to the US, but I share your worry that the transition period might be painful in the short term, and I know Trump will get the blame if that's what occurs.
It was also part of the agreement of the postwar global economy, like how the Dollar became everybody's reserve currency. The idea had some merit. "If we shove all the governments out of pursuing autarchy and build an interconnected global economy, a World War III will become less likely since nobody is going to go to war with their trade partners, and if they do then that countries other trade partners will be its allies, making the war harder to win and thus less appealing."
You've gotta remember, after WW1 and 2 everyone thought number 3 was just a matter of time, and with atom bombs proliferating everyone just naturally assumed that was it. The end of the world was just a few decades away, so strange and desperate measures were called for.
I often think about this. I am a staunch nationalist, but I have never lived through the horrific violence of a world war. Both wars appear to have been so traumatising to Europe that they entertained ideas which to us appear completely insane (due to their manifest effects in the modern world). Perhaps, though, when you've lost a good portion of the entire continent's young men to a pointless meatgrinder, the 'peace and love' crowd start sounding a lot more palatable.
I still believe that nations which look out for their own people's interest first and foremost CAN live alongside each other without inevitably coming to blows, but the challenge is finding that balance.