It’s right and wrong. Globalisation has hurt the rust belt, but it’s also allowed for much cheaper goods, which many people have enjoyed. It’s also made other economies much richer, which has allowed them to purchase U.S. goods (China being an immense iPhone market, for example). It’s not zero sum. If the world economy grows, and the USA holds onto a massive slice of that growing pie, then the USA wins - as it has been doing.
And the part about life just being totally unaffordable now isn’t really to do with China stealing from the US - housing is catastrophically expensive in many countries, and is more to do with how it has evolved as an asset class than trade relationships.
Doesn't that balance out in the end though?
People in Detroit go from working at an automobile factory to working as a service worker at a local restaurant or retail store and their incomes go down massively, meaning all they can afford to buy is cheap crap from China sold at their local dollar store or discount retailer. They would rather have the old purchasing power and old retail options, especially since inflation has eroded a lot of those low prices.
And the part about life just being totally unaffordable now isn’t really to do with China stealing from the US - housing is catastrophically expensive in many countries, and is more to do with how it has evolved as an asset class than trade relationships.