The US didn’t need to support China joining the WTO and when it became clear that they were not being a good partner (keeping their domestic markets locked to outsiders, requiring tech and IP transfer, requiring domestic partners over 50%, violating international labor and environmental standards etc) they should have been expelled and their goods blocked from all markets that we could get to align.

That would have cut off a source of cheap production.

The American people purchase goods within the trade regime, they don't set the trade regime. The oligarchs and political "elite" set the trade regime for personal and politic benefit.

Clinton March 8th, 2000, Johns Hopkins SAIS

On manufacturing, after saying American companies would for the first time sell and distribute American-made products inside China, he adds that they could do it “without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China.”

On democracy, after noting that China is agreeing to more than buying American goods, he says “it is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom.”

With the Trump regime there's been a rather explicit transition from a system of neo-liberal exploitation-with-rules to an out and out oligarchical / corrupt system more analogous to Putin's Russia than Clinton or Obama era US globalized capitalism.

It's .. yes ... worse. Before what you had was an unjust, exploitative, but relatively stable system of rules by which international capitalism operated and in which specific individuals were not allowed to dominate because there was a balancing act of corporate interests, sector by sector, corporation by corporation. If you (not you or I, but corporate entities etc) played by the rules, you might get a chance at the bat.

What's replaced it is outright graft. "Success" is determined by proximity to specific individuals. Success and growth of the overall system is no longer a goal. It's outright "might makes right" politics and what makes it far worse than what came before is not only is it unjust (just like before) for the little guys like you and me.. it is now inherently unstable and prone to collapse.

It's absolutely short termist and interested only in certain families and individuals and maybe sectors.

The people that should be prosecuted are the actual individuals involved.

Also, as a Canadian I'll just say... FUCK Lutnick in particular. Him and Bessent and the whole cabal have made explicit economic war against former "allies" in the name of their own enrichment. It is glorious that they have now have knives out for each other.

> but offshoring and financialization enabled American companies like Apple to retain a much larger chunk of profits and return more wealth to shareholders, who in turn recycled that money back into American assets, lowered cost of capital, raised valuations, funded startups that raised tech salaries and pulled global talent at the expense of other countries

So trickle down, but it only helps a small number of people in a handful of coastal cities? And imports people into the US to then take work from citizens?

And even that is no longer really happening (except for the importing people to take work from citizens), and hasn't for a few years now (not sure if you've seen the tech job market at the moment). Yes, there was a brief period of time that a few technologists were making 6 figures starting..