Trump is right that globalization has hurt industries and their workers in the US. No developed country should expect any result other than this when embracing free trade with low labor cost countries.
The only reason for a developed country to do so would be to help the underdeveloped country, a kind of foreign aid. In this case, we have helped, inexplicitly, an enemy and rival, the last major communist country in the world, to save their economy. In the modern economy, especially when there are no restrictions on the capital flow out and the value that a developed country has is ideas and technical methodology, there is nothing to prevent these things crossing borders.
It would be better had we bestowed the benefits of making Mexico our low wage partner. It would have at least helped the problem we have with illegal immigration from Mexico. This wasn't an option for the neoliberals who needed the lowest possible wages to produce the highest possible profits to and the largest possible increase in the income of the wealthy to produce the miracle of trickle down, prosperity for all of us.
Free trade is a cornerstone of neoliberal ideology. Trump is going to find that the harshest critics of this policy are in his own party, Paul Ryan and the other Libertarian leaning, at least on economics, free market, free trade warriors. The major impact on the US was to lower the wage bill of the corporations who outsourced their production and a decrease in the economic activity in the US because of the lower wages. The corporations picked up another tool to suppress wage demands.
There is no reason to believe that this will start a trade war on the scale of the one started by the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs on virtually everything that was imported. There will be tariffs raised targeting American products but in the overall 20+ trillion dollar economy these won't have any measurable impact on the overall economy.
+1 This.
As an aside.... 500 more steel workers added to Illinois today:
http://www.wtae.com/article/us-steel-will-restart-granite-city-steel-plant/19154100
An extremely important aspect of this (and will not be mentioned by CNN) is these jobs are not Wal mart jobs but middle class jobs. A job where the worker has good health benefits and can actually support a family of 4.
This is a victory for the US middle class that will not get any media attention.
I'm actually surprised this happened. If I were the CEO of US Steel I think I would have played it safe and waited to make sure the tariffs actually take place. IMO there is a 50% chance Trump could change his mind under all the pressure from Goldman Sachs. Or the democrats might still impeach Trump over the fake Russia scandal. The future is always uncertain. In any case, without Trump there would be no prayer at all for these new jobs. Even Trumps own administration is fighting against this, never mind the entrenched Republicans and Democrats.
But anyway here is my scoreboard of what Trump has accomplished thus far for the middle class:
1. He brought down TPP
2. He has attempted curtailment of immigration.
3. He shows promise in getting rid of NAFTA.
4. He has put China' on notice for unfair trade practices.
5. He has attempted to protect the coal industry. Which wont matter in the end, but it does show a real intent to help the working class.
6. Saving the steel and aluminum industry
Though it really should have included some clips relative to Sexbots...