No there isn’t a reason to do that, but I want to call out that you asked about “critical” industries and this is a thread about tariffs which the admin put on all products, including inputs to industries.

Don’t compare apples to tennis balls.

And in regards to the trade deficit, everytime I look at it the numbers it only includes physical products and not services. We’re a heavily service based economy since producing a Facebook is several steps down the tech tree from producing screws.

So again I will ask why a trade deficit on products is bad. We’re just buying shit from less complex economies or ones where the comparative advantage of trade works out. We’re not getting ripped off.

> Is there any reason America can’t continue that without giving every critical manufacturing industry to China?

Totally. The two things are actually quite different. You (US & industrialised countries) removed capital controls and the cost of transport dropped by a lot (shipping containers etc) which meant that it became more profitable to make things in much cheaper countries and so the businesses did that, and now you're/we're screwed.

Reintroduce capital controls and only trade with people with comparable labour rights and wage levels, and this problem goes away. But ultimately, this change was driven by western economic interests, not China/other countries.

That being said, China played this hand very well (from a manufacturing/export perspective) but they didn't cause this. The US & European businesses did, because they could make more money/pollute with less issues this way.

To get free stuff you have to get free stuff. Why would you manufacture stuff, at great expense, when you're getting it for free? That makes no capitalistic sense.