RECOMMENDED READING
Globalization’s ailments were supposed to have a ready cure. Education would prepare American workers to take advantage of the dynamic and well-paying careers of the future, even as many jobs that once supported families and communities headed overseas. American firms, employing this increasingly skilled workforce, would outcompete foreign rivals and expand into new markets.
When these things did not happen — when wages stagnated, cheap imports flooded domestic markets, and American exporters struggled to gain footholds abroad — many assumed the problem must be with education too. Employers lamented “skills gaps” that left them unable to find the talent they needed.
Colleges, already receiving more than $200 billion in public funding each year, demanded greater resources. Economists and pundits devised creative euphemisms to sound original as they repeated ad nauseum their prescription of education and training and, when those didn’t work, more of the same.
Recommended Reading
Trade Deals in the Time of Tariffs
The reciprocal levies aimed at allies have been paused for 90 days, now what?
Trump’s tariffs aim to reset global trade — and boost America’s workers
President Trump ushered in a new era of US trade policy Tuesday — a national course correction after decades of unfair trade practices
Stop Freaking Out. Trump’s Tariffs Can Still Work.
Last week’s “Liberation Day” marked a kind of D-Day in the effort to reorder the international economic system.