The 20th century was the American century; the 21st, not so much. A young person in Denmark or New Zealand has a better quality of life than a young person in the United States. There you can go to college free, not have to worry about money when you’re sick, and enjoy two months’ vacation even if you’re only an intern. Partly this is due to the significant underinvestment by the government in education, health care and the arts, which has left sections of the United States looking like postwar Europe.

Americans who work abroad do quite well; American pilots for Chinese airlines, for example, make $300,000 a year. All around the world, there are legions of Americans making a good living as engineers, corporate executives, English teachers.

Critics say this kind of globalization is only for the elite, those lucky and wealthy enough to have been educated at the best schools. But it’s not just jobs requiring a college degree that Americans should consider doing overseas. A 150-peso-an-hour job in an automobile plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, isn’t the same as a $40-an-hour union job in Detroit; but you will live much better than if you made $8 an hour slinging burgers in Scranton, Pa. Maybe, instead of building a wall, President Trump should be demanding that Mexico open up its labor market to Americans.

I certainly understand why Americans might be attached to their house, their friends and family, their home country. I’ve made New York my home, the last home for those who have no other. The United States is a beautiful country, a safe country and, for most people, a comfortable country. It’s true that we should fight for better-paying jobs at home; companies move jobs abroad so they can pay workers less, in countries with looser environmental and labor laws.

But American jobs are disappearing not because they’re moving to Mexico or China; it’s because they are increasingly being done by robots. What we need is not tariffs, but training. We also need to gently teach our children: You might prefer to stay in the house you were born in all your life, but it’s not a constitutional right.