After the WW2 ended the US government sent US Army officers to Japan and Germany to help teach them how to recover and market items. From pottery, electronic and auto, we showed them how.
The US Gov sent RCA Victrola Corp techs to Japan and showed them how to manufacture electronics and even subsidized the JVC (Japanese Victrola Corparation) build up.
The food stuff that the Army was feeding troops was CRAP. Poor quality and bad tasting. So to make it, CRAP, taste better a US Army Officer went to Japan and helped a Lab make a byproduct from boiling seaweed. The byproduct was a white power that when sprinkled on CRAP food, it tasted better. POOF, MSG was made and is still used to make CRAP food taste better.
US Gov went to Stuttgart Germany and helped Dr Porsche bail out his Auto group. Same with Stuttgart's Mercedes group....
This went on after even the Korean war, the US Gov help bail out Southern Korea's industries.....
SO, WE shot our self's in the foot and have nothing to blame the foreign manufacturers for taking our money.
Trade with first world countries of similar development is not the problem. American corps can compete with corps in Germany and Japan on a level playing field. What you can't compete with is a country with little to no environmental or labor laws, and uses prison labor to further subsidize its manufacturing.
...but yes, the American tax payer has not only defended for that last 100 years, but also rebuilt almost the entirety of the free world.
