system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Donald Trump's protectionist trade policies are disastrous

More than 90% of professional economists agree that on balance, free trade is a net positive, producing lots of growth. Moreover, despite anti-trade political rhetoric from populists (on both the right and left), most Americans view trade as an opportunity rather than a threat. "Buy American" is a great slogan, but most people don't do it. Multiple studies have shown most people opt for the cheaper, foreign-made good over its more expensive American-manufactured counterpart.

In a sense, we get a big tax cut in the form of cheaper goods, food, and services because of free trade. But the benefits from free trade are highly diffuse, spreading across the entire population and macroeconomy. The costs of free trade, however, are concentrated and visible, and it's much easier for people to visualize factories closing town and Rust Belt towns shedding jobs to China. The political system generally responds to those concentrated costs. To address this mismatch, economists need to better explain the broad benefits of trade and contrast them with trade's narrow costs.

Economic theory as developed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo posits that free trade won't lead to unemployment. It stipulates that while there may be structural unemployment in the short-term due to trade and creative destruction, in the long-term, as the market capitalist system adjusts, people will be employed in the industries in which one's country has a comparative advantage. This, according to conventional theory, improves the efficient allocation of resources, and allows firms to capitalize on economies of scale as they can service larger export markets. 

Trade barriers make imports less expensive, providing consumers with more disposable income, allowing them to reduce cyclical unemployment with their spending. Protectionism is viewed to be harmful because it stifles competition and diminishes long-term growth. Trade liberalization generally replaces low-skill and low-pay jobs with high-skill and high-pay jobs, while reducing prices for everyone. Offshoring does not reduce net employment, doesn't inherently exacerbate inequality, and represents a transfer of wages rather than a loss of wages. 

Free trade isn't just "pro-business," it benefits society as a whole. Free trade is merely capitalizing on comparative advantage and minimizing opportunity costs. NAFTA was actually a net gain for every country involved.

Yes, free trade brings short-term difficulties to communities (like Detroit), but in the long run, those communities will rebuild around new industries, as we've seen in Pittsburgh. However, I do think that we should put more pressure on countries who are sustaining their economic growth via unfair currency manipulation (although contrary to Trump's assertions, China has largely ceased doing so). Yes, we need to be wary about global labor arbitrage when multilateral agreements feature countries with divergent labor and environmental standards. Yes, we need to be wary of a global race to the bottom. We need to guard against overspecialization, against dumping (very targeted, narrow, and temporary tariffs on Chinese steel like Obama did MAY be justified), and against the decimation of infant and sunset industries.

However, the solution is to make more comprehensive and better trade deals, not reject them outright (the final draft of the TPP actually had many protections against the aforementioned cases, an improvement over NAFTA in that regard). 

To combat structural unemployment, we need to beef up "trade adjustment assistance," helping laid-off workers relocate and providing them retraining to upgrade their skills. To ease labor transitions accelerated by trade (and technology), "wage insurance" is a sensible policy. On a political economy level, "wage insurance" has been proposed by both George W. Bush (R) and and Barack Obama (D) and has bipartisan support in Congress. It could easily be paid for by capping the mortgage-interest deduction. Essentially, improving free trade agreements is the answer, not to retreating into nationalist protectionism as Trump wants. 

Again, over 90% of professional economists, whether they are liberal, conservative, moderate, libertarian, Keynesian, Monetarist, Chicago School, etc. view protectionist trade policies as highly dangerous, especially because they catalyze retaliatory tariffs and trade wars. Trump would choke off economic growth in the emerging economies and developing nations, and would harm the U.S. economy the same way the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of the 1930s prolonged the Great Depression. He wouldn't bring back blue-collar manufacturing jobs to the U.S. given the pace of automation in today's factories.

Trump perpetuates the narrative that free trade deals have been bad for America, and that they should be reviewed and rejected, with globalization having gone too far. What Trump doesn't understand is that trade is non-zero-sum, and how the basic macroeconomic concepts of comparative and absolute advantage work. Adam Smith and David Ricardo are rolling in their graves at Trump's protectionism. That is why Trump and his closest economic advisers holds the fallacious belief that trade deficits are inherently harmful. In that sense he's neo-mercantilist, hearkening back to the discredited economic policies of the 17th and 18th centuries, the ones Adam Smith correctly railed against. Import substitution industrialization is bound to fail in the modern automation era. 

Ultimately, because of the global connectivity network we're been building, we're only making trade; commerce; and the flows of people, capital and technology easier rather than harder. We can't just unwind that by saying, "I oppose and will repeal NAFTA, or I oppose the TPP." Globalization is inevitable. All Trump will do via his nationalist-populism is make America more isolated and diminished, economically and geopolitically. Particularly in the case of China with the TPP. Overall, Trump's trade policies, including a 20% tax on Mexican imports, would bring about a negative supply shock akin to 1970s-style stagflation, causing a smaller economy and simultaneously higher unemployment and inflation.
gpt
Why are you fixated on Smith and Ricardo? There have been two centuries of economic thought since then, and both have been shown wrong or at least short-sighted on a fair number of points. For instance, Ricardo was with Say in the belief that "supply creates its own demand" which Keynes pretty much buried such that today it's a bit of a joke. 

Economics is a science, not a religion, so it's extremely important to not rely on ancient scripture or any sort of authority that derives from how early in an intellectual lineage a particular figure appears. It's a disservice to the discipline to lean too heavily on 18th century thinkers. We certainly revere figures like Newton for his place in history, but there's no excuse for ignoring Einstein.