Globalization: Why would anyone not object to importing stuff as it leads to offshoring jobs to the lowest bidder?

The answer is not simple, and there can be many alternative views, but through researching many sources, especially government trade statistics and analysis, and also researching the teachings of economic experts, trade overall helps economies.  The key is fair trade.  By opening up the markets globally, then domestic companies are forced to become more competitive, and there is a natural transfer of new technologies between countries. By importing less expensive foreign goods, according to U.S. Government statistics, it increases the buying power of the average american household by several thousand dollars per year. By exporting high quality goods to foreign markets, it increases sales of USA manufactured goods and thus saves and creates USA manufacturing jobs.      It would seem that preferring to buy only USA products would save USA jobs, but not in every situation. It would only save the jobs in the industries related to the products that were purchased. When purchasing some lower cost foreign goods, money is saved, and that saved money can then be spent on other goods from other industries, which of course helps create jobs in those other industries. The money that was spent on those lower cost foreign goods can still find it's way back to the USA economy when the foreign company that made the money turns around and purchases higher quality goods from the USA, such as high tech equipment and machinery. If the foreign company doesn't use the money to buy USA goods, it might buy goods from another foreign company, who in turn might buy from another foreign company, and so on until it either reaches the USA economy through purchased USA goods, or the foreign technology that was created from that money is transferred to the USA through education and the trade of innovative technologies.      According to economists, a country can prosper much more through specialization and trade. This is because when there is access to larger and more diverse markets, then there is access to a larger array of products and services. This allows that country to have more resources in order to develop it's core advantages. Each country has it's own unique advantages, which include natural resources and human resources, which allows them to produce certain products and services at a lower cost than other countries. Whatever is abundant will naturally be cheaper. In developing countries with large populations, low skilled labor is more abundant and thus cheaper to purchase. So developing countries have an advantage in producing low skilled labor intensive products. But countries such as the USA have an advantage producing capital intensive goods, because in the USA economy there is more capital relative to labor. So high quality, high tech machinery, equipment, and technologies are easier to produce and are more abundant.  When each country trades the goods related to their competitive advantage, then each country engaging in that trade is able to purchase more goods and services than if they did not trade. So then, more wealth is gained by importing and exporting. If a country wants a higher standard of living, then they must engage in trade with other countries. What gets in the way of this natural process is corruption and governments getting too involved by imposing high tariffs on one country that is not imposing high tariffs on them for that same product, thus unfair trade.      Naturally, when a company is producing a product that is related to the competitive advantage of another country, they will not want to engage in trade. When a company is producing a product that is related to the competitive advantage of it's own country, then it will want to engage in trade. It's all relative to who you talk to. Of course there is a lot more to the story, and many volumes have been written regarding in-depth global economics. But the more I study, the more I see that the picture is much bigger than I realized when I first began studying global economics and international markets. Since nothing remains the same in global trends, the studying and learning must be continuous and never end.

I'm rather fond of bananas. Without international trade I'd find it very hard to get hold of bananas at a price I could afford. Similarly we don't have huge tea, orange, cocoa or cotton plantations in the UK, so importing these makes me happy. OK, we need to offer something in return for these... hmm we used to make things but we don't any more (it is cheaper to get someone else to) so lets sell our education and design skills and use the money we made earlier to fund other new projects.  Hopefully we all win. I get the goods and financial rewards on my investments, they get a market for their goods and their standard of living rises.

When two parties trade, both are made better off.  So long as they trade of their own free will, this is true by definition: they would not make the deal if it didn't help them.  Rather than pontificating--to use a big word, of which you seem to be fond, although to be fair, I have used mine correctly--I shall instead point you to the wikipedia article about David Ricardo, who has done enough great thinking on this subject for us both. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo