Did you read the Criticism section of the wikipedia article, which describes how the theory doesn't apply if capital flows freely (as it does) and that even when it did apply it created uneven distribution of wealth which have caused countries like China to enact policies to ensure that Comparative Advantage does not apply?<p>At issue here is that we're not trading goods we're good at producing for goods China is good at producing. Instead, we're trading the future earnings of US citizens for Chinese goods. That might have been ok when our debt was low and the goods were low-value, but now our debt is unsustainable and the goods are high technology which we invented and used to produce, but don't anymore. The theory was that we were becoming a 'service economy', but the Chinese don't want or need our services. We have nothing to trade with them except our future financial independence... and the future is coming very quickly.