Part of why the US working class has been so angry isn't just the economic misery but the decades of being gaslit by politicians pretending that outsourcing to countries with no OSHA, no EPA, no concerns about carbon emissions, no workers rights, no unions, and radically lower wages is going to create jobs in America.
It's a clearly absurd proposition on its face. Of course that's going to depress wages and destroy jobs, especially in manufacturing.
I'm all for free trade with other free countries with similar levels of rights for workers and concern for the environment. Outsourcing elsewhere should be taxed proportionally to the gap in these areas.
If you want a simple to implement solution, a tax on a combination of wage disparity and CO2 emission disparity would be enough to capture most of the relevant differences. The latter can be very objectively checked using satellite imaging.
It's a clearly absurd proposition on its face. Of course that's going to depress wages and destroy jobs, especially in manufacturing.
I'm all for free trade with other free countries with similar levels of rights for workers and concern for the environment. Outsourcing elsewhere should be taxed proportionally to the gap in these areas.
If you want a simple to implement solution, a tax on a combination of wage disparity and CO2 emission disparity would be enough to capture most of the relevant differences. The latter can be very objectively checked using satellite imaging.