A lot of countries internationally are moving away from the global list free trade neoliberal paradigm.

Even the United States under Biden was the starting to do that. Trump will very likely do more of that though he's so erratic it's hard to say. This will make inflation worse, but it will also most likely have some good long-term effects. It will protect and bring back know how in US manufacturing and make us less vulnerable to global shocks and shoddy race to the bottom quality slumps. If there's a vigorous FTC, head by somebody like Lena Khan. There will be more than enough competition to bring a lot of the prices back down but this will take years. More importantly the lead of this country will once again be dependent on the workers of this country and will be less able to ignore and undercut populist interests because they can always make money off the back of foreign often slave labor. There will be less union busting and less busting of consumer rights. The United States in 99% of products is more than large enough and more than capable enough to make top end products. It is only the luxury of the rich to outsource certain products and or improper Federal regulation busting up collusion that has created our dependency on foreign suppliers and outsourcing.

I am very much in favor of trade not only within the United States but internationally, but it has to be under certain conditions. First is when there are natural advantages to production in some areas. Brazil will always be better at growing certain agricultural products in the United States even factoring in Hawaii and Florida. Second, international trade between modernized countries that have similar consumer protections, environmental protections, labor rights, antitrust and anti-dumping policies, etc.. are quite reasonable, but there needs to be legal parody before there's free trade otherwise you get into a race to the bottom again where you lose all the gains from proper governance. Third, there should be exchange of ideas. We can have worker exchanges between manufacturing companies. We can have licensing of international patents between countries. We can have exchange students between our universities. Ideas are non-rival risk goods and nobody loses out by sharing them. Similarly, we probably should have free trade in art and music though I'm sure there are ways that people will find to abuse that.

Will trump do this the right way? Not unless we force them to and even then it's kind of doubtful. Go ahead and do as I'm doing and tell him about the importance of keeping competition alive in the United States. Keep Lena Khan in the FTC. Make sure that we have trust busters in the SEC. Break up the awful big monopolies and support the return of essential industries the United States for both security and economic reasons.

What do we lose? We lose the ability of big businesses to extort workers and we go back to the working situation of the 1950s and early 60s.