It will always be possible to get stuff made more cheaply in some third world country with no labour rights, no environmental protection, and import it back into the first world country cheaper than it could be made here, provided there are no import tarrifs to protect the local industry. If it was China 20 years ago, it will be India, Vietnam, Myanmmar or Cambodia today, or perhaps some African countries tomorrow, who knows where they will go next. The end result is a hollowed out economy in the west, with the capability to manufacture just about anything lost for good, and high levels of long-term unemployment, as the people who used to do those manufacturing jobs here are thrown onto the scrap heap. Globalisation has not been without consequences for the west.
On the other hand, you get to buy a cheap kettle in wal-mart... but because you lost your well paid manufacturing job to offshoring or foreign competition, that rapidly becomes all that you can afford. So, it all depends on what you want.
Right now, the auto manufacturing industry is busy being destroyed by foreign EV imports. Once it's gone, it will be gone for good, like all the others, with nothing to replace it. You can go and compete with the rest for a job doing burger-flipping on minimum wage instead. As they told you, you will own nothing, and you'll be happy... perhaps.
