Hmmm, this seems like a topic that economists have likely studied. Why don’t we ask them?

> Economists find that—after taking both the winners and losers into account—trade has net benefits for society. In other words, the benefits outweigh the costs. This does not seem obvious to many people because the costs are often more visible than the benefits. For example, it is relatively easy to identify businesses or industries that have shut down because of trade. Likewise, it is relatively easy to identify people who have lost jobs in those industries. Perhaps you know someone who has lost a job in this way. However, it is more difficult for consumers to identify how much cheaper their car, clothing, and food are because of international trade. In addition, the lower prices paid by consumers and businesses mean they have more money to spend on other goods and services. As a result, there are businesses that have experienced more growth as a result of that spending, which would not have happened without trade. But, again, those gains can be difficult to identify.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2017...

And all of that economic study ENTIRELY omits the strategic costs of oursourcing/offshoring.

* Loss of IP: CCP demands key IP is turned over for access to markets, obviously advantaging their companies over ours

* Loss of know-how, capability to manufacture: key knowledge of how to actually make things is lost, which creates a new, unmeasured, and often fatal drag on onshore companies, and streamlines innovation offshore

* Loss of innovation: IP and know-how lead to innovation; before offshoring, China's patent output wasn't even a rounding error. Now they are on the leaderboard in patent output

* Loss of strategic position - industrially: China is actively working to corner key markets from rare earth minerals to solar panel production

* Loss of strategic position - geopolitical/military: This offshoring funds CCP making key military advances, and also

* Loss of control of supply chains: as is now being seen in spades, even without specific adversarial action, supply chains are now so complex that massive segments of the economy literally cannot get the parts they need to produce. Just in the last 24 hours I've read about this for automobiles, clothing, shoes, tents, and bicycles.

* Insecurity of supply chains: Long supply chains in the hands of an adversary are obviously subject to being shut off for geopolitical reasons, as has been done by the CCP. Australia just recognized the threat and caused a major international rupture trying to compensate.

* Literal military security threats: There are numerous incidents of backdoors and flaws being inserted into technology sourced overseas, as well as spying on the manufacture. And of course there is the certainty that if it comes near to a hot war, key components WILL be shut off.

While the West thinks that they are exploiting China's cheap labor, it is really CCP that is exploiting the West's focus on quarterly profits. Their plan is global hegemony, and our myopic focus on studies like you mention is exactly why this is likely to go down as a blunder of historic scale.

Because China is an excellent example of how unfettered pro-free-trade policies focused only on transitory economic benefits, can lead to the downfall of a superpower — that arc of history is not yet complete, but the rest of the world is at now clearly at considerably greater risk of Chinese CCP hegemony both in Asia-Pacific and globally than we all would be had the focus not been so myopically focused on "free trade uber alles".

In general, and in principle, I'm in favor of free trade - it is the ideal situation.

Among societies with relatively equal capabilities and regulatory environments, and compatible governments (democracy vs authoritarian), free trade should be the default setting.

But, free trade, aside from the massive strategic risks, is also a very convenient way for businesses to externalize their costs. Required to actually provide benefits like minimum wage to your workers? Required to not pollute the town you live it? Need to 'recycle' plastics that can't actually be economically recycled? Why bother, those cost too much! Just export the problems to some other poor nation where you can use slave labor, pollute all you want and just dump the 'recycling' as trash, and complain about Free Trade Restrictions... Nevermind that we create new countries with competitive CO2 emissions, vast polluted wastelands, slave labor, and that our labor force is now directly competing with theirs.

Of course it looks like there's a benefit to us. And of course the economists you sponsor can produce studies showing how beneficial it is. That does not mean that it is true, especially in the long term.

Yes Free Trade in general is a great ideal. That does not mean that it is an unalloyed good in every situation.

I'm not talking about sponsored slanted takes on benefits.

I'm talking about a general myopia focusing on short-term

I was in favor of the TPP, at least the parts that both dealt with some of the inequalities and esp. in that it constrained China.

CCP is a huge problem, and is both uniquely well-positioned and explicitly strategizing to exploit this myopia. It may be the only example like this, but such a failure can be existential. That's why it becomes a focus.

Many other situations are different, but giving away core manufacturing know-how is not typically covered by economists as a long-term issue, and is very hard to restore once lost.