Daniel Drezner: Idea Trump’s Blaming Other Countries for a Productivity Revolution in Steel Is ‘Absurd’

EXCERPT:

SCARBOROUGH: "So Dan, if Detroit could — if Detroit could somehow build all the cars that Americans drive in this country, it wouldn’t be like 1955, it wouldn’t be like 1960. I heard some remarkable stat that if you just looked at the number of people that worked in General Motors in the early 1980s, if you had more people employed then than you have in all these high-tech jobs in Silicon Valley that we rave about day in and day out."
DREZNER: "That’s largely correct. What’s happened essentially is that manufacturing has essentially gone the way of agriculture. You know, if you remember 150 years ago most Americans were farmers. No one thinks that America is not an agricultural power house right now. Even though approximately 2 percent of Americans work in that sector. And the reason is that we’re so productive at it. So the idea that you’re going to somehow blame other countries for what is essentially a productivity revolution is absurd."
BRZEZINSKI: "Yeah."
DREZNER: "And I would add one other thing on this, which is to say that Donald Trump somehow seems to think that running trade deficits is a sign of weakness, is a sign that America is losing."