The free market will always produce a better result in the long run for everyone. The problem is that in the short-run it will also cause inequities as the system works through the price/wage supply/demand issues. The problem is that we had relatively closed markets for a long time.

Even through the mid twentieth century costs of shipping and implementation of capital in other lands made markets relatively local for all but the costliest goods. As shipping costs and capital infrastructure provided more feasible options for international production, the market has begun to readjust to those opportunities. Manipulating currency exchange ratios isn't that answer - that will be done to benefit the few not the many (and frankly is already being done to benefit the few).

Unfortunately, time is the only mechanism to address this, and we are at the front end of the continuum. Thus, we will continue to suffer while much of the rest of the world catches up. But they are catching up. Relative costs of labor in Mexico, the far east, etc. are beginning to increase and with the costs of transportation, will soon equalize. It will work out that as the living standards in these other countries increases, and subsequently labor rates, production will again become more economical locally.

Already we are seeing production plants being built in foreign countries not to leverage cheap labor for our consumption, but to overcome tarrifs and shipping costs for their consumption. I think this is generally good for the whole world, though it is painful for us who were on top for the past 50+ years.

Wouldn't work. The growth is outside the US. Capital is going to go where it gets the most return, and that isn't here. As those other markets increase their standard of living, and the costs of labor and transportation equalize overall costs, manufacturing will return to the US.