https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/03/22/trading-and-down/7Ca0WZ75lmyzBERcPzUo8M/story.html

Trading up and down

By Clyde Prestowitz   March 22, 2016 For many years, American presidents of both parties have sold free trade deals by claiming they would create jobs, raise living standards, and strengthen national security. Now most of the presidential candidates of both parties are saying these were bad deals that off-shored millions of jobs while capping wages for most Americans and strengthening the country’s biggest challengers, like China. What gives? https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/03/22/trading-and-down/7Ca0WZ75lmyzBERcPzUo8M/story.html

For starters, the United States runs an annual trade deficit of about $500 billion. The Commerce Department estimates that every $1 billion of exports creates 6,000 jobs. By extension, one might expect that every $1 billion of imports would eliminate 6,000 jobs. This is not entirely true, because imports of things like rare earth elements in which the United States is not self-sufficient actually create jobs rather than eliminating them. On the other hand, economists at MIT and the Economic Policy Institute in Washington conclude that imports from China eliminated about 2.4 million US jobs between 1999 and 2011.