Just as manufacturing in China took time manufacturing in the US will take time. The US has lost much of its skilled labor and mom and pop parts shop. If we have any hope of re-invigorating this some large company is going to have to bite the bullet. Chicken and egg problem imo. I'll leave whether this is worth it or not up to the economists.
No, US didn't lose it, we collectively decided that whenever we buy something, the price was the most important aspect.
It's like everybody forgot that their neighbour's job depend on them.
We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.
> We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions, we're not losing them like I lost my keys.
A huge part of that is rents. Basically, a store that owns their property outright or even on mortgage has far less worries when business turns down during a crisis. Take Covid - a year or two, depending on where you were, in more or less lockdown conditions.
A store that was owner-owned? No big deal. Staff was paid for by government assistance, not much ongoing cost for the building. Owned but mortgaged? Cut a deal with the bank, no bank wants to go through a 2007ff event again and they also got assistance for loans. But a store that was rented? Yeetie yeetie. Commercial renters have zero protections anywhere, and landlords are nonforgiving - especially when they are backed by REITs and other investment vehicles.
Recent history is filled with examples of investment funds that behave like vultures - seek out a company that has sizable owned real estate, buy stocks, force the management to sell off the real estate in a heavily biased sale-and-lease-back maneuver, put the acquisition debt on the company's ledgers, sell off the real estate and let the husk of the company wither.
> A huge part of that is rents.
And this is becasue huge international investors still own sites like malls and retail centers and still remember the massive rents they used to command for those units.
The bubble will burst when enough sites are written off, and IMO rents will come back down to a reasonable level in a decade or 2.
> And this is becasue huge international investors still own sites like malls and retail centers and still remember the massive rents they used to command for those units.
Oh no. It's US pension funds that own a lot of real estate, and these will continue to get bailed out or protected by the government.
The decision of the US to back pensions on the stonk market has insane, crippling side effects not just on their economy but also on the rest of the world.
Fair enough, I live in the UK where all of our infrastructure and large retail centres are owned by Chinese and Russian investment firms. I was kind of reffering to that situation, as I am not familoier with it in the US.
What you're describing literally is us losing it. We lost in the market. Price was above all for the market and we didn't adapt and lost. I agree with the point you're trying to make but we did lose it in the sense that we do not have the manufacturing capacity we once did
We didnt 'not adapt and loose' we welcomed it with open arms in order to get cheap prices. People voted with their wallets and collectively decided they didnt give 2 hoots about where something was made as long as the price was right.
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Choosing the lowest price is rational for the consumer. Setting the trade policy that allowed that lowest price -- the USA has less protection for the semiconductor industry than it has for textiles -- was the mistake.
Free trade does result in the best prices but it has other, negative effects, and it is when we think as policy makers -- as citizens, not consumers or business owners -- that we are accountable for those effects.
Homo economicus' desire for a 'good deal' or 'a bargain' will kill us.
“Why would I hire X when I can get it for $20 a month on ChatGPT?”
Hmm, I don’t like the sound of that.
We collectively decided nothing.
Our political/ruling class wanted more of the pie for themselves, dropped the trade barriers protecting American industry, and gorged themselves on the arbitrage as manufacturing flowed to our chief geopolitcal rival, who was quite happy to accept such a generous gift.
That's true, but we also collectively decided to buy cheap stuff from Walmart instead of buying from the local town store, creating a race to the bottom.
Ya, because the same item was way more at other stores and people didn't understand why. Most of it was logistics at first and not just cheap items. That and buying in very very large lots. It was over time that the hunt for more profits started chasing cheap items.
Really the mom and pop store was set to die in the US because of car culture. You'll pay a bit more to walk to the closest store, but if you're already driving there is very little cost in driving to a store a little farther is almost nothing.
Or did stagnant wages drive Americans to buy what they could afford instead of products that would last?
We also have many US manufacturers moving sourcing their subcomponents from overseas to save a few cents per unit, there's no way to prevent that, nobody is going to check the BOM from everything they ever buy.
I think collective behavior is a large component but it is not quite right to declare it as the primary driver.
What if people could have purchased American made goods but this means that they would have had to have less or what they did get wouldn't be as good.
For example, I get a 40inch TV instead of a 65 inch or I buy a set of American made screwdrivers but then I can't get a bottle of Vodka.
Most people have their basic needs met. They just want as much as possible for their money even if it harms other Americans. At the same time, if they happen to work at a factory making extension cords, they'll want people to buy their US made cords to protect their job.
Because most people are selfish when it comes to people who aren't family or friends.
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This is not a valid criticism. You cannot expect people to become activist consumers through every purchase in their lives. Some of this is on manufacturers too. With all the billions and trillions we have I don’t understand why Americans are refusing to set up large scale dark factories. China already has ramped up a huge number of them but we refuse to do it.
>We're repeating the same pattern with online shopping, malls and stores everywhere are closing because of our collective actions
Are you talking about the small mom-n-pop shops that are only open when most people are at work, while with online shopping you can do it any time 24/7? The same mom-n-pop shops that refused to take returns, and had poor selection and would take weeks to order something for you, at a ridiculous price?
There are a lot of really good reasons online shopping has put so many stores out of business.
Who's we?
The college educated white collar professionals who are grossly over-represented in policy discourse?
Middle america, the formerly industrial northeast and the former bulk industry west have been complaining about this shit policy for over a generation.
Implicitly shuttering our manufacturing and heavy industry by subjecting it to policy that we knew would make it increasingly noncompetitive at the margin and would prevent continuing investment was a macro/federal level economic policy choice that was actively pursued for approx 50yr.
What government policies are you referring to? Businesses moved manufacturing to China because their goal is to make as much money as possible. The only potential barrier is if US citizens would care that it wasn't made in America. Products are labeled and most people don't care.
This is an American quality where a person who works in a factory that makes extension cords and needs their job to survive would buy the cheaper lamp even though it's made in China.
Most people aren't willing to make financial sacrifices to help people they don't know EVEN if they might be affected by another person having the same belief.
> Businesses moved manufacturing to China because their goal is to make as much money as possible.
There used to be other times and more honorable businessmen. Then came the Dodge Brothers who managed to get a court judgement asserting shareholder supremacy over long term interests [1].
The only thing I never understood is how in god's name Amazon got away with reinvesting profits and never dishing out to shareholders for decades.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
>There used to be other times and more honorable businessmen
The 1930s through 1960s (i.e. industrialization had matured but you can't construe it as "modern" business) are chock full of corporate raiders, acquisitions with nearly monopolistic goals, cartels, etc.
>Most people aren't willing to make financial sacrifices to help people they don't know EVEN if they might be affected by another person having the same belief.
Because in the US that's the case because people give a shit about cost - you could make financial sacrifices to help your community by buying local...but your costs of living are skyrocketing every year, the costs of your family are increasing, and the difference between buying from BigCorp (Walmart, Amazon) and from your local store (which is 1.3-1.7x the price vs BigCorp) adds up.
Sad but it's true.
Not overrepresented enough given that middle America has disproportionate per capita voting power
It's not just middle america. It's the entire economy that deals in things first and numbers and ideas second.
It needs a careful long term approach from real leaders. Not a run-and-gun, corrupt, chaotic president throwing tariffs (taxes) up on a whim.
There is no contingent in the US federal government that has a coherent plan for doing what you're talking about.
The investment in capability that is necessary to build the next generation of manufacturing capabilities in the US is simply not within the public imagination.
I don't think it's something that can be centrally planned well.
If the US changes their environmental regulations to match China, lowered their tax-to-GDP ratio to match China, changed their worker regulations to match China, and then opened up free immigration from Mexico for cheap factory labor then the "free" market would likely take care of opening up quite a bit more manufacturing.
china did not synthesize shenzhen through having poor environmental regulations and cheap labor, nor would one expect to have a shenzhen appear spontaneously in the us if the us allowed in unlimited migrant labor and abolished all environmental law.
Hell, don't even match it. Split the difference and it would unleash a torrent of economic activity.
It will never happen because there's too many industries and jobs that only exist because of all that regulation and will fight tooth and nail to avoid a short term haircut.
He’s at least getting companies to pretend like they’re going to try. That’s a starting point. Before, the best you’d get out of these CEOs is “LOL those jobs are never coming back, learn to code or whatever else hasn’t been outsourced fully yet.”
His predecessor worked with Congress to actually bring microchip manufacturing back to the US and tried to keep us competitive with EV manufacturing (not to mention the infrastructure investments that are necessary for any serious manufacturing effort). Those were real commitments.
Extorting CEOs to announce investments (like the Zuckerberg hot mic incident) is not worth anything to me. Meanwhile the US has been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs for the last year.
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Was Kamala campaigning on bringing manufacturing to Texas?
Probably referring to the CHIPs Act? Technically Biden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act
Technically Kamala.
— As Vice President, Kamala Harris was a key proponent and promoter of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.
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You mean, like FoxConn took $B from orange guy, promised 10K+ jobs, then sat on the land for a few years and did nothing? Sure, let's replicate that at scale..
Things take time. Especially during the pandemic and its aftermath. How you been down to Arizona lately to see the developments? Not just the manufacturing itself but everything that has sprung up around it? It’s impressive.
Managed to do what?
At least he’s trying. Instead of the other side just yelling about “corporate greed” while doing nothing but collecting lobbying money as jobs continue to get exported.
Build products in the US. Those jobs Steve Jobs told Obama are "never coming back".
Last time I checked, manufacturing employment hasn't gone up since Jan 2025.
> Last time I checked, manufacturing employment hasn't gone up since Jan 2025.
It's gone down according to the official US numbers, as expected
Which of those have come back?
Manufacturing output has been ~monotonically increasing except during the great recession for the past 3 decades. Jobs though have been basically monotonically decreasing.
We're still getting the strategic benefits of more manufacturing, just have fewer people getting their thumbs cut off in stamping machines or melted alive in steel mills.
I don't think "we" are getting benefits from more manufacturing. Surely the company CEOs and shareholders are, but the average Joe who doesn't hold shares and just needs an honest, well-paying job is not reaping any benefits.
I view manufacturing to have some parallels like farming. An advanced society is eventually going to get the employment numbers down low through inevitable automation and technology. The goal then is to continue to enjoy having the food and things you made despite not being employed in those fields. How exactly that happens is up for debate.
to be clear, the US has been rapidly losing manufacturing jobs since the orange coronation.
>> Just as manufacturing in China took time manufacturing in the US will take time. The US has lost much of its skilled labor and mom and pop parts shop. If we have any hope of re-invigorating this some large company is going to have to bite the bullet. Chicken and egg problem imo. I'll leave whether this is worth it or not up to the economists.
> It needs a careful long term approach from real leaders. Not a run-and-gun, corrupt, chaotic president throwing tariffs (taxes) up on a whim.
The problem is all the real leaders got indoctrinated and drank the globalization kool-aid. Unfortunately, it seems only an insane and chaotic person was able to actually buck the iamverysmart consensus.
No amount of time will let the U.S. - a country of 348 million people - replicate what China - a country with 1.4 billion people - a can do with manufacturing.
This isn't "working harder".
This isn't "rebuilding infrastructure".
This isn't "training people in trades".
The numbers are so cartoonishly lopsided as to be a non-starter for categorically replacing Chinese manufacturing.
600 million people live in North America. 1 billion people live in the Americas. Another billion live on the Pacific rim in non-Chinese countries.
Establishing regulatory harmony across all those countries is obviously not possible in the same way it is in a single authoritarian state, but if the US made it a priority to create a trade bloc capable of replicating China’s manufacturing capacity, it probably could.
Establishing regulatory harmony is not only not possible but the current regime is working in exactly the opposite direction.
If the US wants to take on China, and actually needs Canada's help to do it -- I can assure you they just set themselves back 10-20 years from achieving that. We no longer have any interest.
The labour forces of Mexico and Canada are not at the US's disposal for these kind of games anymore. For several decades we have been exploited by the US for low wages and cheap resources -- and now there's a regime that's making cheap political points by accusing us of the opposite while trying to emmiserate our populace. So, yeah, no thanks.
There was an APAC trade treaty called the TPP that Rodham-Clinton/Obama pulled out of which would have done exactly that. They were forced to withdraw because of pressure from unions, ie labor not capital.
Now it's the CPTPP and doesn't include the US.
Canada is looking to the Pacific and EU for trade now (and China as well), so is Mexico.
It's likely that the EU/UK trade bloc will connect with the CPTPP via both the UK and Canada, which connects them to the APAC/ASEAN nations.
Everyone is aware of the power of the Chinese economy and the idea of the CPTPP is precisely to build up a trade economy that can compete and co-operate with China on an equal basis.
In the meantime, China is using its Belt & Road Initiative as a sort of "Marshall Plan" to extend its influence by building infrastructure like ports and rail.
These trade initiatives are at least focused on increasing trade, as opposed to the US "trade policy" which is to use tariffs as a crude form of protectionism and extortion to "bring manufacturing back".
> There was an APAC trade treaty called the TPP that Rodham-Clinton/Obama pulled out of which would have done exactly that.
I think you got your timelines crossed - it was Trump who pulled out of TPP (though Clinton also opposed it during the campaign).
we don't have to entirely replace Chinese manufacturing to build back American manufacturing that's a false dichotomy.To compete we'll just have to be more revolutionary than the manufacturing industry already is.
And what exactly will stop China - a country infamous for copying U.S. technology - from copying whatever the U.S. comes up with?
China did in the 1990s exactly what the US did in the 1890s, steal IP to build up its own industries. The US did it to the UK and Europe back then, China has done it against the US/EU over the last 3 decades.
It's at the point now where it is self-sustaining, which is why you see China starting to enforce IP Rights, precisely because it is now generating its own IP that it wants to protect.
Any economist would say that if China did just "copy" US technology to make itself more productive, that's good economic practice, from China's perspective.
Moats only worked for a while to protect European castles, they don't exist now.
It sounds like you're agreeing with me.
forcing the US to copy Chinese designs?
Ford is openly discussing the idea to have joint ventures with Chinese EV makers, the whole idea is to get Chinese EV techs in exchange for US market access.
TikTok takeover is another good example.
both are pretty big numbers and I think are pretty capable to do mass manufacturing. As evidenced by many industries that US had and still has.
it could be less economical, so Apple has to innovate to be competitive on pricing - with automation, robots, etc.
People idealize US regaining manufacturing glory is like climbing from 1/5 back to 5/5 US industrial peak. Meanwhile is PRC grew he denominator and working at 20/20 scale. Ultimately 20 > 5 > 1, but better 5 than 1.
I mean...we're destroying advanced manufacturing where we make expensive things in exchange for cheap manufacturing of basics like textiles where tariffs of 1000% would be needed to make U.S.-made goods competitive. Exchanging high-paying jobs for poverty wage jobs.
Are you sure that’s actually what you want though, competing with China in skilled labor?
Well, once AI takes over most of the white collar jobs, people will have to do something to put food on the table, and not all of them can be gig workers. Or do you see ideas like Universal Basic Income as an alternative for the US?
That's argument is a bit rough given manufacturing is one of the areas seeing the most automation progress and success. One of the main reason it's not more successful is labor costs can be lower than automation that wouldn't be true if we wanted to replace the income of white collar workers in the US.
If we end up in a place where AI and automation take over then yeah I think we start looking at alternative income sources and economic system. Just like star trek predicted we would do after WW3.
I'll worry about the Deus Ex Machina when it's here. Until then, AI is mostly generating a lot of text and burning insane amounts of energy, and we have bigger problems to worry about. Like a president diverting ten billion dollars of tax payer money into his cosplay UN for crooks and dictators.
Of course I do. Competition can only be good here.
You willing to work 996? I would prefer some form of work-life balance.
Why is that the only way to accomplish that? We'll have to restart manufacturing while also keeping wages livable and the work the US does competitive. As I said above we'll just have to be more revolutionary than the manufacturing industry already is.
Most factories in the us simply have multiple shifts and run 24 hours
There’s no world in which large scale manufacturing is returning to the US. Not only are our labor costs dramatically higher than in east asia, but we also lack the logistics infrastructure to quickly produce components and get them to their next stage of assembly quickly. And we can’t just build that stuff because we don’t have a totalitarian government that can just bulldoze farms and houses to run a highway or railway. We also are less interested in pollution, which raises the sticker price on US manufacturing.
If we’re serious about it, we are going to have to commit ourselves to economy-tanking tariffs (like thousands of percents) for many decades until the US worker is as poor as the Vietnamese worker.
In spite of no totalitarian government and things like environmental regulations the US still is able to be one of the most innovative nations on the planet. I don't think we need those things to be able to have manufacturing in the united states. We had it at one point and we can do it again. It's not going to be easy and it's going to need some real breakthrough ideas before we can actually compete. Apple here is the first step.
We never had manufacturing within an order of magnitude of China's scale in the US. Probably not within two orders of magnitude. When the US was a manufacturing powerhouse, we had far cheaper labor, far fewer environmental regulations, far fewer labor regulations, and far simpler supply chains.
> Apple here is the first step.
Pretty sure the much-touted Foxconn plant in Wisconsin was the first step, and just like this one it will be scaled down to a few hundred jobs as soon as possible.
The US had it when the rest of the world was severely bombed during WWII, and a lot of the world was very undeveloped. Things changed.
The US had it for a hundred years before that and was already by far the largest industrial power on the planet before world war 1
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