This David Wessel column in the Wall Street Journal ($) makes some good points on the value of imports. Inasmuch as that value is often misrepresented during a political season, Wessel observes:

Let us now praise the virtues of imports.
Consider the clothes Americans buy for the four million babies born each year in the U.S. The typical family with a young child spends about $500 a year on those cute T-shirts, blue jeans and tiny socks. That’s $2 billion a year.
Not so long ago, the U.S. had a ceiling on imports of baby clothes. That limit was lifted for most countries in 1998, and for China at the beginning of 2003. Imports of baby clothes more than doubled between 1997 and 2003, notes Ed Gresser, who labors to make the case for free trade for the centrist Democrats’ Progressive Policy Institute. Wholesale prices at the ports dropped 28%.
Consumers saved. In the same years, the consumer-price index for all items rose 15%. But the retail price of infant and toddler apparel of all sorts fell 5.2%. Had the price of baby clothes increased as much as the price of everything else, parents would have had to spend about $400 million more to buy as many baby T-shirts, blue jeans and socks as they did last year.
Imports are the consumer’s best friend.
You wouldn’t know that to listen to public debate: Exports equal jobs. Exports are good. Imports kill jobs. Imports are bad. We must accept imports because only then will others take our exports. Imports are a necessary evil.
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Politicians don’t find the appeal to consumers a winner, though. As one Bush administration official confides, it’s like telling a textile worker whose job has moved abroad: “Imports allow you to stretch your unemployment check further at Wal-Mart.”
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The case for free trade is flimsy without remembering that Americans are consumers as well as workers. It is as consumers that Americans benefit the most. Paying lower prices because of imports is as much of a benefit to American families as getting a raise, even though it never feels as good.

During this political campaign, your “demagogue antenna” should turn on anytime you hear a politician arguing against free trade. In the vast majority of circumstances, such drivel is directed at persuading a narrow interest group for political gain. As Mr. Wessel points out above, everyone else loses.