To convert a ruined Europe and Japan into powerful allies, Dwight D. Eisenhower throws open U.S. markets to foreign manufactures and asks nothing in return. The legendary industrial policy of the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt is jettisoned. LBJ completes the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations in 1967. U.S. markets are thrown open to the world. Asia, seeing how Japan grew rich, copies Tokyo, cordons off its own markets and begins competing for the United States.
American consumers love it.
By 1970, U.S. trade surpluses have begun disappearing, and America, fighting Asia's war in Vietnam, is running both trade and budget deficits. Dollars are pouring out. Our allies start cashing in dollars for gold. To save Fort Knox, Richard Nixon slams shut the gold window. The dollar sinks.