Restoring America's Greatness

Restoring America’s Greatness

© 2025, Kristopher Munroe

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 979-8-31780-146-5

eBook ISBN: 979-8-31780-147-2

Contents

Preface1

1. What Is the Argument for Free Trade Absolutism?

2. Offshoring

3. NAFTA

4. Other Free Trade Agreements

5. WTO and Problems with China

6. Energy Policies and How Energy Affects American Manufacturing

7. Universal Postal Union

8. U.S. and China Trade War

9. Second China Trade War

10. The Trade War Continues

11. Trade War After Trump

12. Protectionism

13. Stockmarket, Land Ownership, and Housing Ownership

14. Can We Have a Rich Country That Doesn’t Make Anything?

15. Restoring American Manufacturing

16. Problems with Reshoring

17. The Future of American Manufacturing

18. Conclusion

About the Author

Preface

In a fast-changing world, we have a lot of people on many different sides. It became common for many people to become free trade absolutists, arguing that the people of the United States would benefit if the trade were free, thus giving them access to cheaper goods. Many people believe that the need for free trade outweighs the impact on businesses that will be hurt by foreign businesses importing cheaper goods.

I was born in a small town and lived there most of my life. I saw hard-working Americans get the short end of the stick when it came to global trade and offshoring manufacturing. I am an MBA candidate at Northeastern University, and many of my classes have been around global business and cutting costs with lean manufacturing.

I’ve been studying and learning about supply chains throughout my academic career, and I’ve even worked in clinical supply as a profession. I see myself as a hardworking American who wants a better deal for the American people in the face of big business and global players moving American jobs overseas.

For us to dive deeper, we need first to look at and understand tariffs and why they are commonly used. An import tariff is what comes to mind for most people when they think about tariffs. There are a few different types, but they essentially do the same thing and tax what is coming into the country. On the other hand, what is not so common is an export tariff when you tax goods leaving the country. For many, this may seem counterintuitive, because wouldn’t you want to increase trade and have your business going to other countries? The best way to understand why this is sometimes used is with an example. Suppose Country A is the only country in the world that makes automobiles, and there is a shortage of them at the moment. Automobiles not only move goods around like trucks, but they also move labor around, such as people going to work. The substitutes for automobiles are not that plentiful and practical for many, but the country needs them to maintain its other industries. In this example, we will pretend that Country B is also suffering from an automobile shortage, but they don’t have the means to produce them.

Furthermore, Country B is much richer, and many companies are willing to pay more for them than many consumers or companies in Country A. Without export tariffs, many automobile manufacturers in Country A will send their goods to Country B to make more of a profit. This will negatively affect Country A industries that need automobiles to function. So, the Country A government will tax them with an export tariff to make it unprofitable to sell many automobiles to another country, thus keeping the automobiles for sale inside the country.

The reason for writing this book is to argue that American manufacturing is important for the American people to bring back American greatness in the face of the globalization of our economy. I will argue and present in detail the effects that free trade had on middle-class America. I will look at the damaging effects of NAFTA and how this was an unfair deal for the American people.

I will further go into other free trade agreements and the benefits and costs of some of them to give you an idea of the dynamic of good and bad trade agreements.

I will look at the cost of energy in the United States, how policies affect the manufacturing sector, and why we should not opt into policies that hinder our success as a nation. I will talk about the environmental policies that are futile to our success and only give the upper hand to our competition. Furthermore, I will talk about the Universal Postal Union, the unfair advantage it gives to China, and how the American people are paying for competition and allowing counterfeit goods.

This book will also cover the World Trade Organization, China’s influence, and the effect China has on the American worker. As we see, almost all the household goods we buy at the store and most of our consumer products come from China, when only a few decades ago that was not the case. Why should America be so fair to one nation when they do not return the favor? What obligation do we have to a nation that cheats its way to beat the United States?

I will also argue the need for protectionism, and how corporations are taking advantage of the American people and how they are not only offshoring their manufacturing but also their services. I will also dive into the new Artificial Intelligence (AI), the third wave of offshoring and outsourcing, and the incoming threats to American workers. I will try to warn the American people and take steps and actions to improve our country to try to bring back the dignity and prosperity of our country. I briefly talk about current and past leadership in this book and why America needs to put its interests first in the face of competition. I will explain bad policies that are against American workers.

Furthermore, I will dive into the trade war in the United States with China and how China is being unfair to American companies. I will make the case for why it’s a good thing that politicians are seeing the effects of China, the political implications that it has on the global scale, and the damage they can do to the American economy. I will also explain how many actions go into geopolitical politics and the implications that has on the American economy. Trade relations may not be the most hot-button topic, but it should be one of the hottest topics people in America should be thinking about because the effects are much more than imagined.

Can America be a rich nation if we don’t make anything? I will talk about how America became rich and how we are losing it with all the offshoring. A nation needs to produce goods and services to be powerful and generate wealth. Without that, how will America stay in power with the increasing globalization of the world?

Furthermore, I will move on to the brighter side of things: companies finally realize the American potential and how fragile supply chains are. American manufacturing is superior in terms of quality, and products here are in great demand, which is why companies are bringing back the Industrial Revolution to America.

In this book, it is no secret that reshoring has its problems and is preventing companies from making the switch to manufacturing in America. I will also examine the next wave of manufacturing and how American manufacturing will become the world’s future with the Industrial Revolution 4.0. I will explain how this will not only bring back middle-class jobs and bring back American greatness in our nation.

Chapter 1

What Is the Argument for Free Trade Absolutism?

Why do many people talk about free trade as an absolutely good thing? They say that free trade is always good for the working people in this country. As we know, we are much richer than we were before, and we have a lot of material wealth in the United States. Our homes are filled with things that previous generations could not imagine. We have many clothes and little plastic widgets we do not need. A lot of people look around and tell you how great this is. It may be very convenient to have a $15 coffee maker that you can replace when it breaks.

Many intellectuals also agree that free trade will undoubtedly benefit both countries and that there will only be winners. Economists have talked for years about trade, free international trade, being a positive for economies worldwide, both at home and abroad. This is something that economists universally believe.¹ The idea of free trade has been around for a very long time. A prevalent book on free trade is The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, initially published in 1776. Free trade has been universally praised and written about. The theories of free trade absolutism sound great but lack impractical implications that hinder their success. Many good ideas look great on paper, but they fail to produce positive effects in practice.

Many people are pushing for free trade or doing so in the goodness of their hearts. However, many of the other actors are acting in their own self-interest in attempting to persuade the law of the American people to pursue ideas that are not in their best interests. It is a popular folktale that tells that as a forest shrinks, the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood.

Furthering the topic on The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, a point he makes in his book that speaks to many of the current-day problems for many Americans is that inflation and wages have been decreasing. A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him They must, even upon most occasions, be somewhat more; otherwise, it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation (Wealth of Nations, p. 28). I would take a good look around you. When many people struggle to find good-paying jobs, they will not be able to raise a family and therefore suffer and will be unable to bring forth future generations.

You may often hear the statement that free trade is fair trade as well. These are other ways people express their free trade absolutism. There are a lot of think tanks in the United States that do fascinating work on the powers of free trade. Consider this argument from the Heritage Foundation: Free trade improves people’s living standards by allowing them to consume higher- quality goods at less expensive prices. In the 19th century, British economist David Ricardo showed that any nation that focuses on producing goods with a comparative advantage will be able to get cheaper and better goods from other countries in return.² The basic argument here is that free trade makes goods cheaper, allowing countries to use their unique skills to produce goods at a lower price. As we know, in the United States, many cheap foreign products fill our lives, such as cheap clothes and other electronics and many other things we use daily. Allowing free trade gives people access to these items that cannot be produced in the country at an affordable price. What are the cheap things that improve our standard of living, such as cheap coffee makers and other household items? If you look around at many things in today’s life, you will see that the quality of many items is less efficient than just a few decades ago. We are surrounded by cheap Junk that fills our days.

In the 1950s, we had quality items that would outlive us, from high-quality fabrics to household appliances made of metal and wood that turned into cheap plastics that would break within a few years. On a personal account, I remember my grandfather telling me that it is more expensive to buy cheap because you will have to replace them repeatedly This inferior quality came to my realization of buying cheap dress shoes that would fall apart after one year instead of investing in a quality pair that would last a decade, if not longer. My grandfather left me many tools upon his passing, and many of the things he gifted me were quality products made in the United States. Some of my favorite tools were Craftsman sockets and wrenches that are at least 30 years old and work perfectly. I prefer them to the cheap Harbor Freight tools that are thin and feel much cheaper than the ones my grandfather left me. My grandfather was a wise man who always knew what to do and had a plan. He worked as a truck driver and raised a family in a small town in Massachusetts. My grandfather would also make almost all of the furniture in his house, because he could control the quality and feel of the product when he made it. He may be gone now, but his furniture lives on in the homes of many family members, and many still have some of his creations. He created high-quality furniture the old-fashioned American way. That is why they are still around and will most likely outlive me.

In the case of free trade being suitable for the American people, the Heritage Foundation furthers this argument by saying competition is good for business: Producers benefit as well. In the absence of trade barriers, producers face greater competition from foreign producers, and this increased competition gives them an incentive to improve the quality of their production while keeping prices low to compete.¹ The argument here is the assumption that the company will become more competitive and have to work harder to compete with the larger foreign companies, but as we can see in our backyard,