The simple fact is that really high corporate taxes (waiting for someone to point out all the exemptions for favored businesses that do nothing positive for the business climate) combined with low tariffs is a recipe for off-shoring of production. The combination is unsustainable. We can raise tariffs and have more domestic production and a lower standard of living, or lower corporate taxes and have more domestic production and a higher standard of living, but if we leave corporate taxes high and tariffs low, we will have less domestic production and a lower standard of living.
Lowering corporate taxes and raising tarriff might raise domestic production but it also decreases the government's receipts. Some services or jobs are going to be cut. You don't necessarily have higher standard of living.
The problem too is if short term job growth is all you care about. I am a firm believer that protectionist policies do not benefit the US especially in such a highly inter-dependent global economy.
All imbalances will tend toward the mean. North America became the unbridled leader in quality of life because it had been geographically isolated from civilization for 5,000 years. Turned loose on and abundant, verdant continent it behooved the general populace to afford rights and freedoms to the average citizenry since that was the fastest way to exploit natural resources. Our standard of living rose to a point past where it was sustainable; by our own resources, by what we are able to exploit from other countries, by the labor we are willing to provide or import and maybe by the amount of gullibility we can export. China and the far East are rising today because they have massive populations that, for their existence, must sublimate their personal freedoms and allow the exploitation of their labor and environment. At some point that too will become unsustainable. (Why aren't there strong labor unions in a former communist country?) Basically the high standard of living that we have enjoyed in the US and the poverty of rural China are both divergences from the average standard of living and their return to the mean is inevitable, over time. The advance of free trade and ubiquitous information are just speeding up the process.
I think for that to happen, it would need the backing of the local and provincial authorities, you know those ripe for a little something on the side...
