Comment by throwway120385

The whole "decide that maybe you don't need olive oil that much" thing is what's going to crush the economy in the US. The problem is that demand does not shift to alternative supplies elastically. It takes years and sometimes decades to build an alternate supply chain for some industries. So what you're saying is that an entire generation of children in the US are going to have to grow up materially worse off than their parents and grandparents. And that's assuming that a bunch of businesses magically start overnight to fill the enormous gaps caused by a lack of access to international supply chains. If you look at other countries such as in South America or for example Italy where there are huge protective tariffs, the industries you expected to magically appear didn't. Instead people just have less and work less.

So your dichotomy applies, but it's not some magical ratchet out of globalization unless there's a corresponding push on the federal or state level to build competitive domestic industries to replace the international supply chains we've been cut off from.