What is your view on Free Trade &Foreign Investment?(Conservatives Only)

[Phil25]

I have a mostly favorable view on Free Trade and this was usually the default position of most Conservatives. But with the rise of Trump, there has been split in the conservative camp between Populists and Economic liberals. In my opinion, most of the jobs lost in the Rust belt were due to automation and other technological advancements and not free trade. And we should also have invested in retraining the workers who lost their jobs.
However, I have a generally negative view of foreign investment specifically Chinese acquisition of American companies. This is due to the fact that we cannot buy Chinese companies but Chinese can buy ours. Also most of acquisitions have been by Chinese state-owned companies which have a lot of unfair advantage over private American companies.
So what is your opinion on this issue?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Free trade should be the default, but I am in favor of exceptions. China invests here, which is good not bad. Its because we buy Chinese products, and when we do that they get dollars which they need somewhere to spend. The converse is also true that if we were to sell more products to China we would need somewhere to spend the Yen, so yes it does theoretically disadvantage us that we cannot buy Chinese companies but not so much since we do not sell much to China.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Youtube documentary about how in China there is now a worker shortage, rising wage demands. Its massive migrant worker population is aging. As a result another country with a rural population such as India is likely to take its place as "The world's workshop". So free trade has transformed China for the better which is good, but nothing lasts forever. No model works indefinitely. No model is self-sustaining. They are all self-ending.

The same goes for US free trade and protectionism. We can be protectionist for a short term but not over a long term. At times its good (for the economy) to switch between. We have been free trade for a while, but we cannot always sustain it. Free trade is good for economies but being predictable is not. The problem is our free trade policy became reliable. Protectionism has benefits but creates a stagnant economy over the long run.