Solution to jobs and manufacturing being lost to cheap labor over seas.

Pro has chosen to ignore the topic he posted for the debate, and instead has decide to provide arguments for a different topic, that trade deficits are a bad thing and that high trade deficits are not sustainable in the long run. I quite agree that trade deficits are a bad thing and that high trade deficits are not sustainable in the long run. However, Pro has proposed a specific way which he seems to suppose will cure trade deficits. That method is to provide insurmountable trade barriers that will essentially cut off all foreign trade immediately. What Pro advocates would immediately cut off all oil imports, destroying the US economy, and would precipitate retaliatory trade barriers that would destroy the US status as the world's largest exporting nation. I gave the reasons why that would happen, and Pro gave no counter arguments. Therefore, the resolution fails as accomplishing no more than precipitating immediate economic disaster in a foolish and ill-thought-out attempt to forestall some future economic ills due to chronic trade deficits. It isn't the topic of the this debate, but I will present a list of realistic cures for the trade deficit: 1. Develop domestic oil production in ANWR and offshore. That would reduce oil imports by at least $2.5 trillion. 2. Remove the carbon sequestration requirements from the development of oil shale. The US has more oil in oil shale than the world has collectively produced in conventional oil. The would permit the profitable development of a trillion barrels of oil, and allow the US to be an oil exporting nation rather than an oil importing nation. 3. Alter the US system of lawsuits to match the system present in every other industrialized country. That would make US goods substantially cheaper and would increase exports. 4. Change the US policy of maintaining a weak dollar. This would lower the cost of imports and increase the value of exports. It would make some US goods more expensive, but the net effect would be positive. 5. Substantially reduce government expenditures, so that capital can remain in the private sector where it is productive, rather than in the public sector where it is non-productive. 6. Remove the laws against the reprocessing of nuclear fuels so that the US can be a major producer and exporter of nuclear fuels. The list goes on, but you get the idea. The idea is to remove the government obstacles that have made the US a debtor nation. Pro's idea of raising trade barriers has been tried before and has failed. Trade barriers were a major contributor to the worsening of the Great Depression. Pro's rambling diatribe against trade deficits does nothing whatsoever to his case that the specific solution he proposes, that of raising insurmountable trade barriers, will have a net positive effect. He incorrectly cites the trade surpluses of Europe and Japan. Europe and Japan had surpluses until Q4 of 2008, when high energy costs gave them deficits. Energy costs have since dropped, but that is only a temporary consequence of recession. Pro's resolution would produce permanent recession or depression by imposing trade barriers. That is unacceptable. Contrary to Pro's notion that trade barriers are the only cure for deficits, there are alternative policies, as I have outlined, that do not demand permanent economic disaster. Pro has made no argument that alternatives his policy is the best or that alternatives do not exist. Pro forfeited the first round of debate, and then in the second round failed to respond to any of the arguments presented that showed his proposals would have the effect of producing immediate economic disaster. Reasonable policies, as I have outlined, can provide a cure to trade deficits without the disastrous effects of Pro's resolution. Pro has fully granted the distrous effects by failing to rebut them. The proposed resolution should therefore not be adopted.