Much of Europe still has a strong middle-class. People there can work service jobs and live comfortably. The specific industries that created factory jobs may be in inevitable decline, but the middle-class itself is not. That problem is a political one.
History has shown time and again that capitalism left to its own devices does not create a middle-class. As long as Americans keep waiting for it to do so, the middle-class will keep shrinking. Until we get a new New Deal, this trend will not change.
Ironically, many of the people voting for deregulation and small-government are the ones being hurt the most by those things.
The rise of populism across Europe, including Brexit, has the same root cause as the rise of populism in America: people believing they have been left behind by the global economy and abandoned by mainstream politicians.
Abandoned by mainstream politicians yes, that's the definition of populism (politicians who position themselves against a general 'elite').
Left behind by the global economy, no, there's no evidence of that. It's a New York Times trope designed to make liberal readers feel superior. Polls showed quite clearly that Brexit was motivated by (a) immigration levels and (b) sovereignty, but these are hard to separate because if the UK was self-ruling and the political elite were more in touch with the population, immigration levels would have been kept lower a long time ago and the issue would never have become as neuralgic. People who are angry over ultra-high immigration levels are both annoyed at the quantity but also annoyed at being ignored and told to shut up about it by out of touch politicians.
In particular, there isn't much discussion of trade war in the UK, nor the rest of Europe.
History has shown time and again that capitalism left to its own devices does not create a middle-class. As long as Americans keep waiting for it to do so, the middle-class will keep shrinking. Until we get a new New Deal, this trend will not change.
Ironically, many of the people voting for deregulation and small-government are the ones being hurt the most by those things.