> Which turned out to be worst of possible policies.
Depends on your metric. US companies gained the ability to outsource to low-cost china and this has been fantastically profitable for them.
For the average US citizen, they did benefit from a massive influx of cheap goods and cheap debt at the expense of hollowing out the economy. As it says on the back of most Apple products - "designed in California made in China".
Could be made in the US as well, but too many rules, too inflexible, too high labour costs.
https://theweek.com/articles/478705/why-apple-builds-iphones...
I'm certainly not picking on Apple, most US companies outsource but the Obama/Jobs question really hammers the point.
Probably not a long-term sustainable strategy but i did work for many years.