We don’t have to speculate here. This policy proposal was put forth by the previous administration last summer using the same spurious claims. People were skeptical then too. There’s been a whole lot of noise in the meantime that has distracted from that.
Also, that approach wasn’t Leroy Jenkins-ing into blowing up 30+ years of global supply chain systems and trade. It’s one thing to say, “we seem to have destroyed domestic industry by essentially subsidizing overseas manufacturing and propping up the VC class, maybe this trade arrangement isn’t the best. How do we frame it in terms as NatSec?” compared to “what do those economist nerds know, I wanna make the world beg.”
EDIT: I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me I’d be defending American third-way free trade economic policies of the nineties a decade ago. The issue here isn’t the soundness of that policy set, it’s that you break a whole lot and cause a lot of damaging waves when you try to do a U-turn while sailing a tanker.
