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=== Deindustrialization and wage deflation ===
[[File:U.S Trade Balance (1895-2015).png|thumb|Balance commerciale des États-Unis (1895-2015)]]
Some countries that practice free trade are experiencing [[deindustrialization]]. For example, according to the [[Economic Policy Institute]], free trade in the United States has caused large trade deficits for decades, leading to the closure of many factories and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs. [[Trade deficits]] replace high-paying manufacturing jobs with low-paying service jobs. What's more, trade deficits result in significant wage losses not only for manufacturing workers, but for all workers in the economy as a whole who do not have a university degree. For example, in 2011, 100 million full-time workers without a college degree lost an average of $1,800 in annual [[wages]] in the U.S<ref>https://www.epi.org/publication/the-china-toll-deepens-growth-in-the-bilateral-trade-deficit-between-2001-and-2017-cost-3-4-million-u-s-jobs-with-losses-in-every-state-and-congressional-district/ {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated2">https://www.epi.org/publication/standard-models-benchmark-costs-globalization/ {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>.In fact, these workers, who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector and must take a pay cut to find work in other sectors, create competition that drives down the wages of workers in these other sectors. In addition, the threat of [[offshoring]] of production sites leads workers to accept wage cuts in order to keep their jobs<ref name="autogenerated2"/>.
According to EPI, trade agreements have not reduced trade deficits, but increased them. The growing U.S. trade deficit with China is the result of China's manipulation of its [[currency]], dumping policies, subsidies and trade barriers, which give it a huge advantage in international trade. What's more, the industrial jobs lost to imports from China are far better paid than those created by exports to China. In fact, the USA exports low-wage products such as agricultural goods to China, and imports high-wage products such as IT and [[electronics]]. Thus, the economic reality of the United States contradicts [[Neoclassical economics|neoclassical]] economic theory, according to which the U.S. specializes in the [[Production (economics)|production]] of goods that require highly-skilled, well-paid labor, and imports goods that require less-skilled labor. Thus, even if imports were equal to exports, workers would still lose part of their wages<ref>https://www.epi.org/publication/trading-manufacturing-advantage-china-trade/ {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>.
Other economists have also highlighted these negative effects of trade with China on American workers in their article “Why are American workers becoming poorer? China, trade and offshoring“<ref>https://www.nber.org/papers/w21027 {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2024}}</ref>.
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