The gentleman is ignorant of history. We had an economy half the size of Great Britain at the start, and ended up with an economy twice the size of Great Britain's, while the British embraced free trade and we embraced protectionism. And how can you say these are 19th century jobs, building cars, motorcycles, textiles, toys, etcetera, when Americans, on the eve of the 21st century, are consuming them in greater volumes than ever before. All international trade between all countries, including countries in the European Union, all totaled, is less than the size of the US economy. That 6 trillion dollar figure includes all trade between all other countries, Germany with France, Brazil with Peru, Malaysia with India, everything.
Countries prosper when they get their domestic economies growing.
Every nation that has risen to greatness, and preeminence, Britain before 1860, the US prior to WW1, Bismarck's Germany prior to WW1, postwar Japan, all of them, protected their domestic markets and invaded foreign markets. They all used the same Hamiltonian formula. And none of them rose to prominence by throwing open their borders. The way to stop the WTO is to enforce all the accusations of member countries against other member countries. The US puts out an annual report along with Canada and Japan, accusing other countries by name of violating laws.