Have our trade policies made us a Third World country?

Many believe our present trade policies began with the NAFTA treaty that was negotiated between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. After that, the corporate agreements spread around the world. South Korea, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and others. We are paying a price in this present crisis, they believe.

We seem to have shortages in all sorts of medical equipment, including masks and gowns. The ventilators are complex machines with small parts that are made in different countries. The whole idea was to save money on parts and labor for a better return for shareholders. Consumers saved money on a lot of products imported from overseas.

But, as they used to say in the '70s, when the producer names the tune, the consumer does the dance. That seems to be where America is with a lot of products. We are no longer a manufacturing economy. We are a consuming society. We can see that can create problems when we face a crisis like we are now facing.