What does the US import that, if cut off, would decrease our quality of life?

[pampango]

112. Tariffs. No thanks. FDR lowered them. Progressive countries now don't use them.

Tariffs are a Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover kind of thing. Sound good but historically don't work as advertised.

That's why modern progressive countries promote strong unions and a healthy middle class the old-fashioned, 'FDR' way - high/progressive taxes, legal support for strong unions, effective safety net, tighter corporate regulation and promoting trade. Not with tariffs. It worked for FDR. It works for today's progressive countries. Funny how going "FDR" never goes out of fashion for liberals nor loses its effectiveness.

From FDR's speech at the 1936 convention:

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.

And from FDR's 1945 State of the Union speech:

But it is our hope, not only in the interest of our own prosperity but in the interest of the prosperity of the world, that trade and commerce and access to materials and markets may be freer after this war than ever before in the history of the world.