I'm assuming that "some countries as a whole can be hurt by free trade" implies countries that are quite different from USA, and who get very different benefits/drawbacks/tradeoffs on free trade than USA because of their geopolitical circumstances.
>It isn't obvious that America has ever been made worse off by free trade.
George Washington seemed to think it was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789
Free trade only hurts if you're not among the richest countries. It prevents countries from escaping the middle income trap, since their industries are not able to sustainably compete with imports.
America was not able to compete with British textiles when the tarriff of 1789 was passed. It wasn't the poorest country in the world, but it wasn't among the richest like it is today.
The US dollar acting as the global reserve currency via Bretton Woods is the basis of the modern free trade regime. The 'highly questionable' monetary policy largely exists because the US dollar is the reserve currency for international exchange. The trade deficits and arguably even said physical wars and debt are all symptoms of that.
The problems it causes to the US are actually so obvious that it has a name (Triffin dilemma)
I was with him up to here. This is a bit of a handwave that deserved deeper treatment.
It isn't obvious that America has ever been made worse off by free trade. The US government has been waging a War on Savers from at last the 90s. 40 years of anti-savings policy seems like a much more obvious culprit than free trade.
In the last 30 years the States burned huge amounts of resources fighting silly physical wars, engaged highly questionable monetary policy and run up jaw dropping amounts of debt (I haven't yet found anyone who will argue it is going to get payed back in real terms, the evidence otherwise might be overwhelming). Foreigners and free trade didn't do that. The Chinese are out there talking about the Belt & Road, the biggest infrastructure program ever. Their army is deployed close to the border.