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"If it wasn’t China, the US would be importing goods from elsewhere."

Other places don't cheat with market access or steal IP anywhere as much as China. Any economic rebalancing would have been far more gradual.

"What the US hasn’t done, is spread the benefits of trade internally. The US economic problems stem from whatever led to a small percentage of the economy pocketing the vast gains."

You mean policies such as open trade with China, which was inherently biased towards profits to the top, given the way offshoring worked?

This does not mean there weren't other factors at work, rather that China trade was one policy in an array of policies with a similar outcome.

"But it’s always easier to blame Johnny Foreigner and people have been doing it for millennia, so there’s no reason to believe the US would be immune from it. "

My country profited from the US's Free Trade advocacy, and I still think the US's China policy was either insane or driven by elite concerns. It's one thing to have free trade, another to have one-way free trade with a country that cheated so openly, and is now a superpower competitor.

> The US is wealthier than it has ever been thanks to trade abroad.

And more unequal than it has been since the Gilded Age, when the infamous robber-barons ruled the economy unrestrained.

As you said, the US hasn't "spread the benefits of trade internally", but that has a lot to do with globalization. Workers lost bargaining power and income as competition for their jobs increased due to globalization, and unions became weak when companies responded to strikes by moving operations overseas.

The benefits of globalization naturally flow to foreign workers and the few Americans in charge, while the cost of globalization falls on American workers.

>If it wasn’t China, the US would be importing goods from elsewhere.

I don't see the problem. USA has practically no leverage in the trade relationships with China. They can't change China for the better. So cutting China off is a net benefit even if other countries will take its role. That also means USA can now trade with countries that actually respect American laws and do in fact share American values like democracy or human rights.

This idea that we must sell our soul for a small profit must die.

Agree with you. That's how free market-based economic works, seeking maximum return. Inside an economy, free market tends to increase economic inequality and monopoly, which seems to be the major source of many things going on (Trump elected, protests in HK, France). When this happens, blaming Johnny Foreigner is easier..