> would love to learn of any other ways but this has been discussed by people way smarter than me for ages and I have seen no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy or cause a revolution.

Yeah, here's one: protectionist tariffs. I once looked into what it would cost to make a pair of pants in the US instead of China. The difference isn't that large; something like an extra dollar goes to shareholders instead of workers. You can see it in the actual list prices of jeans made in China[1] versus USA[2]. They're .... about the same. This same calculation is done in lots of different places: MBA types want that extra dollar to go to shareholders. Well, if they're not allowed to do so, everything works just fine.

[1]https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/sale/c/levi_clothing_sale_us

[2] https://www.allamericanclothing.com/made-in-usa/jeans.html

You seemed to have missed the option that has been driving economic growth for centuries: improved worker productivity through improved technology and methods. A machine can work cheaper and faster than any Chinese worker. Eliminating work is even more efficient than that.

So basically work smarter than harder or cheaper. The way to compete with the Chinese is through better ideas.

That's the theory we heard since 1980s: then Japanese robots will run over everyone. In practice however, you have Chinese workers instead. Outside some very high volume, certain simplicity manufacturing processes it's still mostly manual labor on assembly line.

Yes manual labor is used when it makes economic sense and automation is the same. Robots did indeed take over many tasks, but people still exist and still want to work so they do stuff too.

The idea that automation means people can't or don't work is a fallicy.

Communist China never should have been granted MFN status. That was our mistake. No one in the U.S. feels threatened if Germany, France, England, or any other Western liberal democracy manufactures something. (I make an exception for some goods critical to national security, which we should always have know-how for.) But China is a hostile nation.

When Woodrow Wilson talked about making the world safe for democracy, the flip side of that is that democracy requires safety and security. We liberal democratic nations are capable of playing nice with one another. We will have normal rivalries. But China cannot play nice.

We need to transition away from trade with China, under MFN status.

> no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy

After this pandemics is over I think we'll know better what "no other solutions that wouldn't sink the US economy" actually means. I suspect that behind the typical talk about sinking "the US economy" is not what it appears to be, especially if one talks about "capitalism" versus others.

Namely, since a some decades ago both China and Russia are technically capitalistic societies. Therefore I interpret the statements only as "will our empire continue to be the empire." The empire is kept primarily with the arms, and they aren't going away, whatever changes.

Very easy to change with laws. Similar to how laws were passed after 2008 to force banks to be less profitable (they can't trade any more, need more reserve capital, etc.). Very easy, all you need is political will. Trump was going in the right direction with trade war with China (possibly for the wrong reasons), I'm really happy because I predict it will be a political suicide for the Democratic candidate to propose the opposite policy now, so it will become the policy regardless of who wins the election.