This is awkward. Normally skeptical of any politician, I am doubly so when they push their ideas as doggedly as President Trump. But, dang it, on the big picture, he is right.

This past month I worked with international aid missions focusing on Adriatic countries like Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. My family joined me for some R&R time while I visited those countries and then spent several days in Italy.

The Adriatic has a rich and fascinating history that extends back 3,000 years. It is the birthplace of the Hellenic culture that shaped western civilization. The people living there are hard-working with intense commitment to family and community. Why do they struggle economically?

The pieces started to come together in Italy, when the 90+ degree heat suggested my daughters and granddaughters could use a “capello di paglia,” produced for centuries by the hat-makers of Montappone. Sure enough, stores right outside the port were filled with stylish hats bearing that trademark Italian look . . . all of them with a little tag that read “made in the P.R.C.”

The same was true with Italian coral cameos. The artisans at the Palazzo del Corallo, outside Naples, still make precious metal lockets inset with a side portrait of a Roman Goddess hand-carved in seashell. But a kilometer away, the similar cameos for sale at all the shops and tourist venues are made in Indonesia and Malaysia.

The story is especially sad in Greece. My specific assignment was to look at how small investment might help struggling Greek farmers. Greece used to have a thriving niche agricultural economy, producing highly desired cheeses, dates, figs and olives. Real Greek extra-virgin olive oil is a favorite of chefs worldwide, and candy-makers and distillers alike eagerly seek the famous kumquat citrus of Greece for sweet treats and popular liqueurs.

But thousand-year-old olive groves were bulldozed to create Mediterranean resorts for Europe’s rich and famous. Greeks themselves realized the crisis and sought to remedy it with strict land controls. Now the rich who own coastal villas pay locals peanuts to retrieve nets laid down under “their” olive trees . . . since the trees (not the industry) are protected by law.

Consequently, volume olive production has fallen off a cliff, and no one is attentive to the horticultural demands of thriving and productive trees. The groves are untended, unpruned, and often overgrown with non-native “ornamental” plants. One local told me that seventy percent of the original olive presses now serve as flower planters for local villa owners.

“Making stuff” now accounts for less than 10% of the Greek economy. Investment has gravitated to the “easy and quick return” of tourism. That economic “bet” failed catastrophically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism is just now bouncing back.

Visitors to the Greek island of Corfu can buy its famous kumquatcello (the result of using kumquats in limoncello distilling, in the place of lemons). But check country-of-origin labels. Right on Corfu, the local Greek merchant may be selling you a product made in Taiwan.

Manufacturing takes time. A kumquat orchard delivers a marketable return only five years after planting. But the payoff is undeniable. Selling liqueur to tourists has a 1.1 to 1.2 times multiplier in the local economy. Growing, processing and packaging kumquat has a 1.8 to 2.3 times multiplier. Sales to tourists might support one family. Making the product itself supports more than one, likely two families, and helps with a third.

Northern Italy has retained much of its manufacturing base. That is where Fiats and Ferrari’s are still made. Southern Italy has more or less followed Greece. The health of the local economies could not be more starkly contrasted.

Trump is trying to reverse the “Greece-ification” of the American economy. His heavy-handed foreign trade negotiation, quick use of the tariff, streamlining of manufacturing regulations, and focus on skilled trades are all part of that strategy.

Will those tactics work? I honestly do not know. But Trump’s opposition doesn’t even give him credit for heading in the right direction. They are like the Greek politicians who think the answer is one more vacation resort for celebrities.

Sorry, on this debate, my experience tells me Trump has the course correction needed for America to thrive.