Since Free Traders believe that America should lower its standard of living to help the third world

[Spider Jerusalem]

130. What exactly has that got to do with the topic at hand?

Oh, that's right, nothing. It's a red herring. The fact remains that even if only 5% of the population of China and India is benefiting economically? That's a hundred million people. It's equal to US consumption being increased by a third. Which is pretty unsustainable as there isn't enough to go around already. Hence the decline of living standards for some Americans (and for that matter Europeans).

And I haven't said anything about the amount of pollution because it's also not part of the topic at hand, it's totally extraneous and unrelated except in a cause-and-effect manner. Now tell me how you'd propose to re-industrialise the US while maintaining a wasteful standard of living given higher unit production costs and the necessity of importing resources?

And I doubt the US economy is going to "collapse". There's going to be a period of adjustment to new realities that's not going to be comfortable for a lot of people...but it won't be a collapse, either. (And again you haven't really come up with a good reason why 5% of the global population should be entitled to a third of the resources.)