In this article: How American manufacturing changed, how trade policy helped create the framework for globalization, how Congress from both parties participated in building that system, which party supplied the majority of votes for major trade measures, how enormous retailers such as Walmart changed the relationship between manufacturers and retailers, and why I believe the American worker was never given the same level of protection as the corporations operating within that system.
I want to talk about something that has bothered me for a long time.
We hear about American jobs disappearing.
Factories closing.
Manufacturing moving overseas.
Companies outsourcing work.
Communities losing good-paying jobs.
And when it happens, we’re usually given the same explanation.
That’s just globalization.
We’re told that companies have to compete.
We’re told that cheaper products benefit consumers.
We’re told that American workers need to learn new skills.
We’re told that the economy is changing.
We’re told that those jobs aren’t coming back.
But there’s a question I don’t think gets asked nearly enough.
Who created the system that made it so easy for those jobs to leave?
Because companies didn’t create international trade agreements.
Companies didn’t write federal trade laws.
Companies didn’t give presidents authority to negotiate trade agreements under expedited congressional procedures.
Congress did.
Presidents signed those laws.
And over several decades, politicians from both major parties helped build the framework that allowed American companies to operate increasingly globalized supply chains.
My view is that this wasn’t simply an unfortunate side effect nobody could have anticipated. I believe politicians and corporate leaders put their own financial and political interests ahead of ordinary workers. Companies wanted cheaper production and better returns. Politicians kept building and maintaining a system that made those choices easier, even as workers and communities paid the price. To me, that looks like greed and selfishness at the top—and a government that failed to put its own citizens first.
That doesn’t mean a law directly ordered a company to move a factory overseas.
It didn’t.
Companies made those decisions.
But the government created and maintained the legal and economic framework in which those decisions became possible and, in many cases, financially attractive.
And when the consequences reached American workers…
We were told to adapt.
That’s the part I have a problem with.
And I don’t think this can be explained away as nothing more than the economy changing. Companies pursued what benefited them financially, and politicians chose to keep supporting the rules that made those decisions possible. The result was a system that protected corporate flexibility far more effectively than it protected workers’ livelihoods. In my view, that is a failure of government—and it reflects a level of greed and selfishness that ordinary workers are expected to tolerate.
America Used to Make a Lot More of What It Bought
There was a time when American manufacturing was a much larger part of the American economy.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing employment reached approximately 19.6 million jobs in June 1979.
Today, manufacturing employment is around 12.6 million.
That’s roughly seven million fewer manufacturing jobs than at the peak.
But I want to be careful here.
That doesn’t mean seven million jobs were simply shipped overseas.
Manufacturing employment has also been affected by automation, productivity improvements, recessions, changing consumer demand, technology, and foreign competition.
The decline is more complicated than simply saying:
“They outsourced seven million jobs.”
But the decline is real.
And the communities built around those manufacturing jobs felt it.
Factories weren’t just places where people worked.
They supported entire communities.
Workers bought houses.
They bought cars.
They ate at restaurants.
They shopped at local businesses.
They paid taxes.
They raised families.
A factory closing could affect an entire town.
And when enough factories disappeared…
The economic foundation of entire communities changed.
Globalization Changed the Equation
Globalization didn’t happen overnight.
It developed over decades.
Trade barriers changed.
Transportation became cheaper.
Communication became faster.
Companies learned how to coordinate production across multiple countries.
And American companies increasingly discovered something very attractive.
They could manufacture products somewhere else for less money.
Sometimes much less money.
A company could move production to Mexico.
Or China.
Or another country with lower labor costs.
The company could reduce manufacturing expenses.
Consumers could potentially pay less.
Shareholders could potentially benefit.
And the worker who lost the job?
The worker was expected to find something else.
That’s where I think the system becomes difficult to defend.
Because the benefits of globalization weren’t necessarily distributed evenly.
The savings could be spread across consumers, corporations, and shareholders.
But the costs could be concentrated in specific workers and communities.
One factory could close.
One town could lose hundreds or thousands of jobs.
And the people who lived there couldn’t simply move the factory back.
This Wasn’t Just the President
One thing I don’t want this article to become is another partisan argument.
I’m not interested in pretending this was exclusively a Democratic problem.
I’m not interested in pretending it was exclusively a Republican problem either.
The history doesn’t support either argument.
Presidents from both parties signed major trade legislation.
Congress from both parties passed major trade legislation.
And different parties supplied the majority of the votes for different pieces of the system.
That’s important.
Because if we’re going to talk about accountability, we should actually look at the voting record.
Not just the party label of the president.
Not just what politicians say today.
Look at who voted for the laws.
The Laws That Built the Modern Trade System
The Trade Act of 1974
President Gerald Ford, a Republican, signed the Trade Act of 1974 into law.
The law established the original version of what became known as fast-track trade authority, allowing presidents to negotiate trade agreements with the expectation that Congress would consider the resulting legislation under expedited procedures.
The final conference agreement passed the House 323–36 and the Senate 72–4.
But here’s something important.
The majority of the yes votes came from Democrats.
In the House, 176 Democrats voted yes compared with 147 Republicans.
In the Senate, 41 Democrats voted yes compared with 31 Republicans.
That doesn’t mean Republicans weren’t involved.
They were.
It means that when we ask which party supplied the larger share of the votes that passed the legislation, the answer is Democrats.
This wasn’t an outsourcing law.
It didn’t tell companies to move factories overseas.
But it established an important part of the trade-negotiation framework that would remain in place for decades.
Congressional Research Service — Trade Promotion Authority and Fast-Track Trade Legislation
The Trade Agreements Act of 1979
President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, signed the Trade Agreements Act of 1979.
The legislation extended fast-track authority and implemented agreements resulting from the Tokyo Round of trade negotiations.
The House passed it 395–7.
The Senate passed it 90–4.
Again, Democrats supplied the majority of the yes votes.
In the House, 247 Democrats voted yes compared with 148 Republicans.
In the Senate, 52 Democrats voted yes compared with 38 Republicans.
So again, this wasn’t a situation where one party acted alone.
But the voting record tells us which party supplied the larger share of the votes that moved the legislation forward.
The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988
Then came the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988.
President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed it into law.
The bill extended fast-track authority and strengthened the framework for future trade negotiations.
The House passed it 376–45.
The Senate passed it 85–11.
And once again, the majority of yes votes came from Democrats.
In the House, 243 Democrats voted yes compared with 133 Republicans.
In the Senate, 50 Democrats voted yes compared with 35 Republicans.
That matters because this legislation helped establish the framework under which later administrations negotiated major trade agreements.
And those later agreements included NAFTA.
Then Came NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement is where this issue became much more visible to the average American worker.
NAFTA was negotiated and signed by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, in 1992.
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, subsequently pushed the implementing legislation through Congress and signed it in December 1993.
NAFTA took effect January 1, 1994.
The House passed the implementing legislation 234–200.
But look at the party breakdown.
132 Republicans voted yes.
102 Democrats voted yes.
So Republicans supplied the larger share of yes votes in the House.
The Senate passed NAFTA 61–38.
Again:
34 Republicans voted yes.
27 Democrats voted yes.
So Republicans supplied the larger share of yes votes in the Senate as well.
This is important because it shows why simply saying “both parties did it” isn’t quite enough.
Both parties participated.
But they didn’t always provide the same number of votes.
U.S. Senate — NAFTA Roll Call Vote
Washington Post — How Congress Voted on NAFTA
The Uruguay Round and the Creation of the WTO
The next major step came with the Uruguay Round.
President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act in 1994.
The House passed the legislation 288–146.
The Senate passed it 76–24.
Democrats supplied the majority of yes votes in both chambers.
In the House, 167 Democrats voted yes compared with 121 Republicans.
In the Senate, 41 Democrats voted yes compared with 35 Republicans.
The legislation implemented the Uruguay Round agreements that established the World Trade Organization system.
Again, this wasn’t a law saying:
“Move American factories overseas.”
But it expanded the international trade system within which American companies operated.
Brookings Institution — Trade and the Uruguay Round
Then Congress Made China’s Trade Status Permanent
China became an increasingly important part of the story.
In 2000, Congress approved legislation granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations, or PNTR.
President Clinton signed it.
The House passed the legislation 237–197.
But the party breakdown is revealing.
164 Republicans voted yes.
73 Democrats voted yes.
Republicans supplied more than twice as many yes votes as Democrats.
In the Senate, the bill passed 83–15.
45 Republicans voted yes.
38 Democrats voted yes.
Again, Republicans supplied the larger share of yes votes.
China subsequently joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001.
The significance of this decision shouldn’t be understated.
China already participated in international trade.
PNTR didn’t invent globalization.
But China’s permanent trade status, combined with WTO membership, helped dramatically increase the scale of China’s role in the American supply chain.
And that’s when the effects became much more difficult for American manufacturing communities to ignore.
China Changed the Scale of the Problem
Researchers have spent years studying what became known as the China Shock.
Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that increased Chinese imports had significant effects on American manufacturing employment and on the communities most exposed to Chinese competition.
One study estimated that Chinese import competition was associated with approximately 1.4 million manufacturing jobs and 0.6 million service jobs lost between 1999 and 2011.
Other research has found that communities heavily exposed to Chinese imports experienced significant changes in employment, with manufacturing workers moving into other industries and some communities experiencing long-term economic damage.
NBER — The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade
NBER — Import Competition and the Great US Employment Sag of the 2000s
This is important because the consequences weren’t simply:
“Some factories closed.”
Entire regions experienced economic changes.
Workers lost jobs.
Businesses lost customers.
Property values changed.
Tax bases changed.
And many of the jobs that replaced manufacturing work didn’t provide the same wages, benefits, or stability.
Trade Promotion Authority Came Back Under George W. Bush
In 2002, President George W. Bush, a Republican, signed another Trade Promotion Authority law.
The House passed the legislation 215–212.
And this time the partisan breakdown was dramatically different.
190 Republicans voted yes.
Only 25 Democrats voted yes.
Republicans supplied the overwhelming majority of the yes votes.
The Senate passed the legislation 64–34.
Again, Republicans supplied the majority of yes votes.
The law restored trade-promotion authority after it had expired.
Congressional Research Service — Trade Promotion Authority
Barack Obama and Trade Promotion Authority
Then the process continued under President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
In 2015, Congress approved another Trade Promotion Authority law.
The House passed it 218–208.
But again, look at the votes.
190 Republicans voted yes.
Only 28 Democrats voted yes.
Republicans supplied the overwhelming majority of the House votes supporting the measure.
The Senate subsequently approved TPA legislation by 60–38.
President Obama signed the legislation in June 2015.
So once again, the history doesn’t fit neatly into a partisan story.
A Democratic president signed it.
But Republicans supplied most of the House votes necessary to pass it.
That distinction matters.
Congressional Research Service — Trade Promotion Authority
Donald Trump and USMCA
Donald Trump campaigned heavily against NAFTA.
His administration negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, as a replacement.
Congress approved the implementing legislation, and President Trump signed it in January 2020.
USMCA replaced NAFTA.
But it did not eliminate North American free trade.
It modified the agreement.
That distinction is important.
Trump’s trade policy was different from the policies of previous administrations in several ways, including greater use of tariffs and a more confrontational approach toward China.
But the United States remained deeply involved in the global trading system.
Look at the Pattern
This is the part I think gets lost in political arguments.
If you look at the history, you don’t see one political party creating globalization while the other party simply watched.
You see presidents from both parties.
You see Congress from both parties.
You see legislation that sometimes received overwhelming bipartisan support.
You see other legislation where one party supplied most of the votes.
And you see the system continuing across multiple administrations.
That’s why I don’t think this can be reduced to one party. Democrats and Republicans both helped maintain the system, although the voting records show that the balance of support differed from bill to bill.
My criticism is directed at the politicians who supported these policies and the corporate interests that benefited from them—not at ordinary voters who identify with either party.
I believe greed and political self-interest took priority over protecting American workers.
The better question is:
“Who voted for these laws, what did those laws establish, and what happened to American workers afterward?”
And there’s another question I think is even more important.
Where was the same level of urgency for protecting the workers who would be affected?
Because the government made it easier for companies to participate in an increasingly global economy.
But when workers lost their jobs because of the economic changes that followed…
The worker was generally told to retrain.
Move.
Adapt.
Find another job.
Learn another skill.
Accept that the old job wasn’t coming back.
That’s a very different kind of flexibility.
And Then Companies Started Using the System
The laws didn’t tell individual companies:
“Move this factory to Mexico.”
Companies made those decisions.
But once the international trade system existed, companies had powerful financial incentives to organize production globally.
And we have plenty of documented examples.
General Electric
General Electric became one of the most visible examples of a company pursuing a global manufacturing strategy.
During congressional debate over China’s trade status in 2000, the Congressional Record discussed GE’s strategy of globalizing production.
GE had expanded manufacturing operations in Mexico and other countries and was increasingly organizing production internationally.
The company wasn’t unique.
It was part of a much larger corporate trend.
Congressional Record — September 14, 2000
Maytag
In 2002, Maytag announced that it would close its refrigeration manufacturing operation in Galesburg, Illinois.
Approximately 1,500–1,600 workers were affected.
Production was moved to other facilities, including a new plant in Reynosa, Mexico.
Maytag’s decision became another example of the pressure American manufacturing communities were experiencing.
Maytag Corporation — SEC Filing
Washington Post — Maytag Job Exports Criticized
Carrier
In 2016, Carrier announced plans to move manufacturing operations from Indianapolis to Mexico.
Approximately 1,400 manufacturing jobs were initially at risk.
The Trump administration intervened and negotiated a deal that kept approximately 800 factory jobs in Indiana.
But approximately 600 manufacturing jobs still moved to Mexico.
Indianapolis Business Journal — Carrier to move Indianapolis manufacturing to Mexico
CNN — Carrier deal saved some jobs, but hundreds still moved
Rexnord
Rexnord also announced plans in 2016 to close an Indianapolis manufacturing facility and move approximately 300 jobs to Mexico.
CNN — Rexnord to move jobs to Mexico
IBM
IBM provides another example outside traditional manufacturing.
In the early 2000s, the company was widely reported to be moving thousands of jobs offshore while expanding its global workforce.
When the Retailer Becomes More Powerful Than the Manufacturer
There’s another part of this story that I think gets overlooked.
The pressure to move manufacturing overseas didn’t come only from trade policy.
It also came from the enormous purchasing power of the companies selling those products.
And there may not be a better example than Walmart.
Walmart became the largest retailer in the United States and, because of its enormous sales volume, developed tremendous bargaining power over the companies that wanted access to its shelves.
That changes the relationship between a retailer and a manufacturer.
When you’re a small manufacturer selling to a small number of stores, you have some ability to negotiate.
When one retailer represents an enormous percentage of your sales…
Walking away isn’t nearly as simple.
And Walmart’s business model was built around a very straightforward promise:
Low prices.
The problem is that somebody has to absorb the cost of those low prices.
Sometimes it’s the retailer.
Sometimes it’s the consumer.
Sometimes it’s the manufacturer.
And sometimes, ultimately, it’s the worker.
Rubbermaid
Rubbermaid is one of the clearest examples.
In the mid-1990s, the price of resin—the raw material used heavily in Rubbermaid’s plastic products—rose dramatically.
Rubbermaid attempted to raise its prices to retailers to account for those increased costs.
Walmart refused to accept the increase.
The dispute became extremely damaging to Rubbermaid.
Walmart reduced its purchases of some Rubbermaid products and gave shelf space to lower-priced competitors.
PBS’s Frontline documentary Is Wal-Mart Good for America? documented the dispute through interviews with former Rubbermaid executives and Walmart representatives.
Rubbermaid’s former executives described the enormous pressure created by Walmart’s purchasing power.
And the documentary also interviewed economist Gary Gereffi, who described Walmart’s purchasing model as one in which suppliers were pressured to meet increasingly low prices.
FRONTLINE — Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
The important part for this article isn’t simply that Walmart wanted lower prices.
Consumers generally like lower prices.
That’s understandable.
The larger issue is what happens when the world’s most powerful retailers demand prices that American manufacturers can’t sustainably meet while maintaining domestic production?
One former Walmart executive interviewed by Frontline acknowledged that suppliers had told Walmart they felt strong pressure to move production overseas.
He described suppliers saying that Walmart’s opening-price-point pressure had effectively forced them to make decisions to move production to countries such as China because the China price became the world low price that had to be matched.
FRONTLINE — Interview with Ray Bracy, Walmart International Corporate Affairs
That is an incredibly important point.
Because now we’re looking at something bigger than an individual company deciding:
“Let’s move our factory overseas because labor is cheaper.”
We’re looking at an economic chain reaction.
A retailer demands a lower price.
The manufacturer has to reduce its costs.
The manufacturer looks for cheaper materials.
It cuts workers.
It automates.
It changes suppliers.
And eventually, it may move production to a country where labor and manufacturing costs are dramatically lower.
The retailer gets the low price it demanded.
The consumer gets the low price.
But the American worker can lose the job.
And that’s where Walmart becomes important to this discussion.
I’m not saying Walmart personally caused every American factory to close.
That would be an enormous and unsupported claim.
I’m saying Walmart’s purchasing power helped establish a business environment in which American manufacturers were under enormous pressure to continually lower their costs.
And according to people interviewed for Frontline, some suppliers believed that pressure pushed them toward overseas production.
Rubbermaid Is Especially Interesting
Rubbermaid is also important because it demonstrates what could happen to a major American manufacturer that couldn’t—or wouldn’t—simply meet the retailer’s price demands.
Rubbermaid had been known for quality, innovation, and American manufacturing.
In 1994, Fortune named Rubbermaid America’s most admired company.
But the company eventually fell into serious financial trouble.
Its conflict with Walmart was one part of a much larger collection of problems, including rising raw-material costs, management problems, competition, and its own strategic decisions.
In 1999, Rubbermaid was acquired by Newell.
So I don’t want to oversimplify the story and say:
“Walmart killed Rubbermaid.”
The evidence doesn’t support reducing everything to one cause.
But Walmart’s enormous bargaining power clearly mattered.
Contemporary reporting described the shift in power between retailers and manufacturers, noting that Walmart could live without Rubbermaid while Rubbermaid had much more difficulty living without Walmart.
Fortune — Rubbermaid Goes Thump
And that’s the larger point.
When one retailer becomes powerful enough that manufacturers cannot afford to lose its business, the retailer can influence how those manufacturers operate.
That includes what they manufacture.
Where they manufacture it.
How much they pay workers.
How much inventory they carry.
How much they charge.
And ultimately, whether manufacturing in the United States remains economically viable.
The Race to the Bottom
This creates a cycle that I think is worth talking about.
Retailer:
“Give me a lower price.”
Manufacturer:
“Our costs have gone up.”
Retailer:
“Then find a way to lower your costs.”
Manufacturer:
“We can’t manufacture it here for that price.”
Retailer:
“Then someone else will.”
And eventually…
The factory closes.
The production moves overseas.
The American worker loses the job.
The product gets cheaper.
And everyone congratulates themselves on the efficiency of the global economy.
Except the person who just lost their livelihood.
That’s what I mean when I talk about a system that doesn’t appear to put the American worker first.
The government built the trade framework.
Corporations used that framework.
Retail giants demanded lower prices.
Manufacturers responded by cutting costs.
And workers absorbed much of the disruption.
That’s a system.
And systems have consequences.
The Lobbying Machine: Buying Access and Favor
This is where I think the story gets even more troubling.
Companies don’t just respond to the laws the government passes. Large companies also spend enormous amounts of money trying to influence the people who write those laws. They hire lobbyists, retain outside lobbying firms, fund political action committees, and maintain relationships with lawmakers and political organizations.
And I want to be clear about my view: I believe corporate America has bought favor with the government, while the average worker has been left to fend for themselves.
Legally, a campaign contribution is not automatically a bribe. Lobbying is not automatically corruption. A lobbyist meeting with a politician does not, by itself, prove that a particular vote was purchased. Those are legal distinctions. But in my view, focusing only on the technical definitions misses the larger problem.
Look past the terminology for a moment.
A corporation spends millions of dollars lobbying the government. Its lobbyists have access to lawmakers and government officials. Its PAC contributes to political campaigns. Executives and lobbyists maintain relationships with the people making decisions that affect the company’s industry.
Then ask a simple question.
What is the corporation buying with all of that money?
Maybe it isn’t technically buying a vote. Maybe it isn’t technically buying a law. Maybe it isn’t technically buying a favor in a way prosecutors could prove in court. But it is buying access—and access has value.
The average worker doesn’t have a lobbying department. They don’t have millions of dollars to spend maintaining relationships with members of Congress. They don’t have lobbyists monitoring legislation on their behalf or arranging meetings with policymakers.
So when a massive corporation can spend millions of dollars making sure its interests are represented while ordinary workers have virtually no comparable access, I think we’re allowed to question what kind of influence that creates.
You can call it lobbying. You can call it political participation. You can call it campaign finance. But if money is being used to obtain access and influence from the people making decisions, the distinction between buying influence and buying favors starts to look a lot more like a question of terminology than a question of power.
And that’s the part that bothers me.
The system doesn’t have to be technically illegal to be deeply unfair. A company may be operating entirely within the law, but the law itself can still favor the company over the worker. In my view, that is exactly what has happened: corporate interests have been allowed to build influence in Washington while the people whose jobs and communities are at stake have been told to adapt.
Who Is Walmart Lobbying?
Walmart publicly reports its lobbying activity and political engagement. Its public-policy disclosures say the company spent $7.84 million on federal lobbying in 2025. Walmart also reports that its federal PAC, WALPAC, distributed its 2025 federal contributions approximately 44.8% to Democrats and 55.2% to Republicans. Those figures show that Walmart’s political giving isn’t simply limited to one party; the company is investing in political relationships across the aisle.
Walmart also discloses the trade associations and business coalitions to which it makes significant contributions. Those groups can provide another way for a corporation’s policy preferences to be represented in Washington.
Walmart — Public Policy and Political Engagement
The point isn’t that these figures prove a specific law was passed in exchange for a specific contribution. They don’t. The point is that a company with Walmart’s resources can spend millions of dollars ensuring its priorities are represented in the political process.
And Walmart Isn’t the Only One
Amazon is another major corporation with a substantial lobbying operation. Federal lobbying disclosure records show that Amazon.com Services LLC reported approximately $4.59 million in lobbying expenses in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone. Large corporations also retain outside lobbying firms, meaning their efforts can involve both in-house government-affairs teams and outside specialists.
U.S. Senate — Lobbying Disclosure Act Database
The Senate’s lobbying disclosure database lets the public search lobbying filings by client, lobbying firm, issue, and reporting period. These records are public, but the average worker is unlikely to have the time or resources to track them the way a corporation and its lawyers can.
Contributions, Gifts, and Influence
I also want to distinguish campaign contributions from gifts. They are not the same thing, and federal rules treat them differently. Political contributions and lobbying disclosures can be searched through official records, while gift and travel restrictions have their own rules. I am not claiming that every contribution is a bribe or that every meeting is corrupt.
But that legal distinction doesn’t make the imbalance disappear.
My argument is that corporations can legally spend money to cultivate access and influence, and that this system allows wealthy interests to receive attention that ordinary workers cannot buy.
A campaign contribution doesn’t need to come with a written promise saying, “I’ll give you money if you vote this way,” for money and access to shape who gets heard. The advantage can come from having professional lobbyists, repeated meetings, organized political spending, and the resources to keep pushing an issue long after an individual worker has run out of time or energy.
That’s why I see this as more than a technical debate about what legally qualifies as bribery. In plain language, I believe companies have bought favor with government—and government has been far too willing to serve corporate interests while ordinary people lose jobs, security, and the communities they built.
The Worker Doesn’t Have a Lobbying Department
The worker doesn’t have a PAC. The worker doesn’t have a team of lobbyists tracking trade legislation. The worker doesn’t have corporate attorneys monitoring proposed regulations. The worker doesn’t have millions of dollars available to maintain political relationships.
The worker has a résumé.
And when the factory closes, the worker is told to update it. Learn new skills. Move somewhere else. Find another industry. Adapt.
The corporation gets lobbyists. The worker gets told to adapt.
That difference is hard to ignore.
And when I look at decades of trade policy, factory closures, corporate lobbying, and political contributions, I don’t see a government that consistently put its citizens first. I see politicians from both parties helping maintain a system that corporate interests could use to increase profits and influence, while workers were left to absorb the consequences.
That is my criticism: greed and selfishness were rewarded, corporate access was protected, and the average worker was treated as expendable.
The Point Isn’t That Every Company Did Something Wrong
I want to be clear about something.
I’m not saying every company that operates internationally is evil.
I’m not saying international trade is inherently bad.
I’m not saying Americans should never buy products made outside the United States.
And I’m not saying every manufacturing job that disappeared was caused by outsourcing.
That’s not reality.
Automation matters.
Technology matters.
Productivity matters.
Consumer demand matters.
Competition matters.
Recessions matter.
But outsourcing and offshoring also happened.
And pretending otherwise doesn’t help anybody understand what happened to American workers.
I’m also not saying Walmart is solely responsible for American manufacturing’s decline.
It isn’t.
Walmart is an example of something much larger:
What happens when enormous purchasing power is combined with a global supply chain and an almost relentless focus on the lowest possible price.
And the question we should ask is whether the cheapest possible product is always the best outcome for the country producing it.
What Happened to the Communities?
When a factory closes, the damage doesn’t end when the last worker walks out the door.
The factory might have employed 1,000 people.
But those 1,000 people spent money in their communities.
Restaurants lose customers.
Stores lose customers.
Contractors lose customers.
Property values can fall.
Tax revenue can decline.
Young people leave.
Businesses close.
The community becomes less attractive to new employers.
And eventually, the place can become a shadow of what it used to be.
That’s the part of globalization that doesn’t show up on the price tag of a television or appliance.
You can calculate how much cheaper a product became.
It’s harder to calculate what happens to a community when its economic foundation disappears.
The Worker Was Told to Adapt
This is where I think the system becomes especially difficult to defend.
When a company moves a factory overseas, the company gets to adapt.
When technology changes an industry, the company gets to adapt.
When a corporation restructures, it gets to adapt.
When shareholders demand better returns, the company gets to adapt.
But what happens to the worker?
The worker gets told to adapt too.
Learn something new.
Go back to school.
Move somewhere else.
Take a lower-paying job.
Start over.
Get another certification.
Find another career.
Maybe that’s necessary sometimes.
But there is a difference between being forced to adapt and having the resources to adapt successfully.
A 25-year-old worker might be able to start over.
A 55-year-old worker who spent 30 years in manufacturing has a very different problem.
The worker may have a mortgage.
A family.
Medical expenses.
Debt.
A career built around a specialized skill.
And suddenly the government tells that person:
The economy changed.
But who changed it?
Manufacturing Isn’t Dead
American manufacturing still exists.
The United States remains one of the world’s largest manufacturing economies.
Factories still operate.
Americans still make cars, airplanes, medical equipment, machinery, chemicals, electronics, food, and countless other products.
So this isn’t a story about manufacturing disappearing completely.
It’s a story about what happened to the share of the American economy supported by manufacturing employment.
It’s also a story about what happens when production becomes increasingly international.
A product might be designed in the United States.
Its components might come from several countries.
Assembly might happen somewhere else.
The finished product might be shipped back into the United States.
That’s globalization.
And it can make supply chains incredibly efficient.
But it can also make the United States vulnerable.
The Real Question Isn’t “Can We Bring Every Job Back?”
I don’t think the answer is to pretend we can simply rewind history.
We can’t.
Technology has changed.
The world has changed.
Consumer expectations have changed.
Global competition exists.
And some jobs aren’t coming back in the form they existed decades ago.
The better question is:
What industries are strategically important enough that the United States should make sure it can produce them domestically?
Medical supplies.
Critical electronics.
Semiconductors.
Defense equipment.
Energy infrastructure.
Food production.
Transportation.
Industrial machinery.
Things that become a national security problem if the United States cannot obtain them.
COVID-19 exposed some of these vulnerabilities.
The United States discovered that having an efficient global supply chain isn’t the same thing as having a resilient supply chain.
So Why Didn’t the Government Stop It?
This is where I keep coming back to the same question.
Why didn’t the government simply prohibit American companies from moving certain jobs overseas?
The answer is that the federal government generally has not created a blanket prohibition against an American company relocating production overseas simply because jobs would be lost in the United States.
Instead, the government has used other tools.
Tariffs.
Tax policy.
Trade enforcement.
Government procurement requirements.
Industrial policy.
Worker assistance.
Retraining.
Economic incentives.
And more recently, programs designed to encourage domestic investment in strategic industries.
Those tools can influence corporate behavior.
But they’re different from simply saying:
“You cannot move this production out of the country.”
And that brings me to the bigger issue.
Who Was the Government Protecting?
This is the question I think deserves much more attention.
The government has spent decades building and maintaining a system designed to facilitate international trade.
That’s not a secret.
The laws are public.
The votes are public.
The presidents who signed them are public.
And the companies that took advantage of the system are public.
What I don’t see is the same level of urgency historically being applied to protecting American workers from the consequences.
In my view, the government failed its citizens. It helped build and maintain a system that gave corporations more freedom to chase lower costs and higher profits, but it did not provide workers with comparable protection when those decisions devastated their livelihoods. I believe that reflects a government too willing to serve powerful corporate interests and too willing to leave ordinary people to deal with the fallout.
When companies wanted greater access to foreign markets, government worked on trade agreements.
When corporations wanted predictable international trade rules, government negotiated them.
When businesses wanted lower production costs, the global economy provided them with options.
But when workers lost their jobs?
Workers were generally offered assistance.
Retraining.
Unemployment benefits.
Job-search programs.
Sometimes relocation assistance.
In other words…
The system was designed to help companies adapt to globalization.
Workers were expected to adapt to it.
That’s not the same thing.
And I think it’s fair to ask whether American workers received enough protection in exchange for the enormous economic changes that were being implemented.
I’m not saying the government had no responsibility toward workers.
It clearly did.
I’m saying that looking at the historical record, protecting the worker from the consequences of globalization does not appear to have been treated as seriously as facilitating globalization itself.
That’s an argument that can be examined through the actual laws and votes.
And that’s why I think the voting record matters.
We Became Dependent on the Global Supply Chain
There’s another consequence that became obvious over time.
Dependency.
If you move enough production outside the country, eventually you become dependent on the countries producing those goods.
That’s fine when everything works.
Until it doesn’t.
A pandemic.
A war.
A shipping disruption.
A geopolitical conflict.
A natural disaster.
A trade dispute.
A shortage of critical materials.
Suddenly, something manufactured thousands of miles away isn’t just a cheap product.
It’s something you might not be able to get.
That’s why the conversation about manufacturing isn’t only about jobs anymore.
It’s about resilience.
It’s about national security.
It’s about economic independence.
And it’s about whether a country should be comfortable depending on foreign production for products it considers essential.
The Part I Keep Coming Back To
I don’t want this article to be about blaming one political party.
The historical record is too complicated for that.
Democrats supported major trade legislation.
Republicans supported major trade legislation.
Democratic presidents signed major trade legislation.
Republican presidents signed major trade legislation.
And, importantly, the party supplying the majority of yes votes changed depending on the legislation.
That’s why I think accountability should be based on what people actually did, not simply what political label they wore. And I want to be clear about my opinion: I believe politicians and corporate leaders have acted greedily and selfishly, protecting their own interests while ordinary workers were treated as expendable.
If a politician voted for a law that helped create the modern trade system, that’s part of their record.
If another politician voted against it, that’s part of their record too.
If a president signed it, that’s part of their record.
And if a company subsequently used the economic framework to move production overseas, that’s part of the company’s record.
We don’t have to pretend one side is completely responsible.
And we don’t have to pretend both sides behaved identically.
We can look at the votes.
We can look at the laws.
We can look at the outcomes.
And then we can ask the uncomfortable question.
Did the people making these decisions do enough to protect the American workers who would bear the consequences?
I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question.
Your Job Wasn’t Replaced
Maybe that’s the part that bothers me most.
When an American worker loses a job because a company moves production overseas, we often talk about it as though the job simply disappeared.
It didn’t.
The job still exists.
Someone is still doing it.
The product is still being manufactured.
The work is still being performed.
It just isn’t necessarily being performed by an American worker anymore.
Your job wasn’t replaced.
It was relocated.
And when that happens, the worker is the one who is expected to start over.
Again.
And again.
And again.
That’s why I don’t think the conversation should simply be about globalization.
It should be about the people who were expected to absorb its consequences.
Because when a company can move production across a border in search of cheaper labor…
And an American worker is left trying to figure out how to rebuild an entire career…
We should at least be honest about what happened.
The worker didn’t fail the system.
The system changed around the worker.
And the people who created and maintained that system should be accountable for the consequences of those decisions.
Not because they were Democrats.
Not because they were Republicans.
But because they were the people who voted for the laws.
What Do You Think?
Do you think the U.S. government has done enough to protect American workers from globalization and outsourcing?
Do you think these trade policies were necessary for economic growth?
Do you think they went too far?
Do you think American companies should have more restrictions on moving production overseas?
How much responsibility should enormous retailers have when their demands for lower prices put pressure on American manufacturers?
Or do you think companies should be free to manufacture wherever it makes the most economic sense?
I’d genuinely like to hear your perspective.
I’m not going to pretend that only one party is responsible. The votes show that politicians from both parties helped maintain this system. But my opinion is clear: I believe companies bought favor and access, politicians put corporate interests ahead of ordinary citizens, and the government failed to protect the workers who paid the price. I see greed and selfishness at the center of that failure.
It’s about looking at what actually happened.
Look at the laws.
Look at the votes.
Look at the companies.
Look at the retailers.
Look at the communities.
And then decide for yourself whether American workers were protected well enough.
About The Exploited Worker 138
The Exploited Worker 138 is an independent publication exploring work, layoffs, unemployment, artificial intelligence, automation, the economy, technology, housing, and what it means to rebuild in a changing world.
The goal isn’t to pretend we have all the answers.
It’s to have the conversations that often don’t happen until after the job is gone.
Starting Over in a Broken System.