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Notes -
Even from a purely economic viewpoint, international trade is great only as long as there are no supply chain disruptions.
Having at least some industry at home makes sense from a strategic viewpoint. Not only are you better able to handle supply chain disruptions in the short term, you also keep the necessary expertise around. As long as you are making cars, you are also teaching people to make cars, to run the factories and so on.
If the US stops manufacturing cars, and in 20 years' time it turns out the US can't import cars anymore for whatever reason, perhaps a war or something, they will have to restart from scratch. Scaling up is one thing, but if nobody remembers how to make a car anymore and has to dig up old books, and if there are no working factories around, it will take a very long time before anything is produced again, let alone anything of acceptable quality.
You pay for this with inefficiency in the here and now, that's true.
Indeed. I think the question is, if we decide to pay for it, who should pay for it and how should that cost be assessed.
For example, in order to prop up the US shipping industry, the Jones Act creates certain mandates that are moderately inefficient. Opinions can differ on whether the benefits to preparedness are worth it, but there is a separate stream of opinions on whether that cost should be passed disproportionately to HI, PR and to a lesser extent the LA metro area.
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