China

>”It’s economically productive for the 1% to maintain a trade relationship with China. The financial incentives don’t help any Americans, and in fact, most of us are hurt by this relationship...”

So true, since its inception with GHW, its execution and realization through Clinton and then once fully engaged the timid, supplicant responses from GW and BO, China has contributed to the stagnation of the blue collar worker on America with the full complicity of Democrats, Republicans and most of Industry and even unions who didn’t oppose their cozy politicians. They all only saw starry dollar signs...

That’s where we are now. People have had enough. That’s why they put up with the guy no one likes because he’s willing to sever that codependent relationship.

Now, if you ask any pol running for the nomination who the greatest threat to America is... it’s not going to be China...

The article focuses on human rights abuses which I think is a cogent criticism of China-US trade.

On the economics issue though, readers should know he disagrees with economists, who nearly universally agree that trade with China benefits Americans as a whole, with the caveat that there are concentrated losses in certain populations. Economists are highly certain on this, with uncharacteristically few people responding "uncertain" on the survey [0]. You can go through the other surveys on the IGM Forum to see what more common distributions looks like.

[0] http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/china-us-trade

I’m not sure these economists have spent time in the Rust Belt, then. Entire cities were economically destroyed from the offshoring of jobs to China and other low-cost areas.

Umm...economists know all about this. I taught international trade classes out in North Carolina. Talked to numerous people affected by the loss of textile manufacturing. There's a massive literature, going back decades, on the topic.

I wish there was a way to raise the level of discussion on HN. Instead, completely uninformed comments like this get upvoted.

Perhaps my comment was a bit dismissive, but I think the general point stands: academic economists don’t live in the places that have been economically ruined by offshoring jobs. University professors are white-collar professionals and don’t live in run-down, economically-dead towns.

It’s easy to draw abstract analyses from afar, but without actual hands-on experience, you end up with unexpected side effects - like the current rise of populist protectionism.