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The ultimate problem is, Reagan and the free traders were just wrong. Free trade destroyed our ability to manufacture physical goods, offshoring is forcing American workers to compete with every person in the world and making software far more attractive since software companies can hire thousands of Indians to work for pennies.
Ultimately I think Trump should just accept that fact and say hey Reagan was wrong. But then again I'm not a politician.
I strongly urge you to read this article by Hanania. It's a stock narrative in American populism that neoliberal policies in general (and NAFTA in particular) resulted in all of the manufacturing jobs being offshored and the demise of the Midwest, but Hanania quite rightly points out that, as a consequence of more efficient technologies, the proportion of the US population employed in manufacturing had been in steady decline for decades prior to Reagan's election. The graph illustrating this is really striking (Ctrl-F "continuation of a long run process"): there are literally no shocks, spikes or sudden drops visible from about 1977 onwards, it's a smooth, continuous decline.
If an Indian can do the same job as an American for half the price, it would be foolish not to hire the Indian. This is also known as "economic efficiency".
If you want a job as a cashier that will pay €75k a year, no one would hire you. If you whined that you can't get a job because of all the scab workers/immigrants who'll work for peanuts (i.e. €25k a year), everyone would laugh at you. I truthfully do not understand why this complaint is illegitimate for an unemployed cashier with delusions of grandeur, but why I'm supposed to take it seriously when an unemployed software dev makes it. Because software dev is "skilled labour"? Too bad: your salary is in part a reflection of your skillset's scarcity in the jobs market. If lots of people invested in learning the same skillset as you, and some of them want to live within their means, you will be outcompeted. Better luck next time.
That argument shouldn't apply unless the US has full control over the other country's government. Otherwise the other country's government can mismanage it in such ways that people there are willing to work for very low wages, and then those people will work for low wages in our country and drive our salaries down. On the level of each individual laborer the laborer is working for peanuts in the US voluntarily, but on a level of incentives, most of them would not have done so if the other country's government had not made their country so poor.
And the other country's government, of course, is a government and as such not subject to market forces or economic efficiency.
Also, this assumes some sort of weird EA-variant. If it's economic efficiency to not hire Americans, I don't want economic efficiency. Why would I hold economic efficiency as an end in itself without regard of who gets to benefit from it? I don't treat all humans alike.
Is your claim then that you would rather American firms hire mediocre American programmers over talented Indian ones?
It depends on the value of "mediocre". "Mediocre" could, for instance, mean "does equally good work, but demands an American salary", in which case yes. It could also mean "is slightly less efficient and the amount by which he is less efficient doesn't matter", in which case, also yes.
Who would you rather an American firm hire: a talented Indian programmer, or an American programmer who is less efficient to the degree that it matters?
The answer is tautologically the Indian programmer because of the phrase "to the degree that it matters". It is possible to think the Indian programmer should never be hired and still agree with that (the degree that it matters would then be zero).
I don't know if that answer is tautologically true: I think there are quite a number of nativists who think the number of Indian programmers getting hired by American companies on H1B visas ought to be zero, regardless of how talented they are.
Then they think it doesn't matter, so it's still true.
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