They told you it was free trade. They told you it would lift all boats. But as the factories shuttered, as union halls emptied, and middle-class neighborhoods hollowed out, something else became clear: the prosperity never came back. Beginning in the late 1970s, America opened its economy to global competition—especially with China—under the promise of cheaper goods and greater growth. And while U.S. multinationals flourished and consumers saw lower prices, the American working class bore the cost. Between 2001 and 2011, the “China shock” alone erased over two million jobs, hitting industrial towns already on the brink.
Meanwhile, U.S. policymakers slashed taxes on the wealthy, gutted union protections, and let corporate profits soar without reinvesting at home. CEO pay skyrocketed. Wages stagnated. The promise of the American Dream was replaced by the reality of gig work, medical debt, and jobs without benefits.
China, by contrast, used its trade windfall to build: high-speed rail, highways, housing for hundreds of millions. It lifted 800 million people from poverty. America privatized its globalization dividend. China reinvested it. And now, facing record inequality and rising populism, American leaders blame China for the decline. But the truth is, this wasn’t theft. It was a transaction—brokered by your own elites.
This isn’t just an economic story. It’s a reckoning with a political class that outsourced not just your job, but your future. And if America is to recover, it won’t come from another tariff. It’ll come from rewriting the rules of who the economy serves—and who it leaves behind.
