They presume that a trade concession extracted from us by our trading partners is to their advantage at our expense, and must be countered. Few economists see the world that way. And I am rash enough to suggest that we economists are correct, at least in this regard: trade is not a zero sum game.
We can see here the emergence of a trade-off between the social value of a long-term investment and the private value of liquidity. Financial intermediaries – in particular depository institutions – reconcile the trade-off. By engaging in maturity transformation, they make it possible for socially-valued long-term projects to be funded by privately-desirable liquidity.