Not to disagree (or agree), but it seems to me most USians were quite happy to buy cheap Chinese crap at Walmart & Amazon in the last decades, thus off-shoring their own jobs. The chickens are home to roost.
Unfortunately, I see no realistic way to bring back the kind of manufacturing jobs in the same numbers we had in the 50s-70s. And nobody wants to work them anyway, a family friend runs a small company making material handling equipment, and he is always short of assemblers. At one point he was starting assemblers higher than welders, and still struggled. We're fighting too many years of telling kids to avoid the trades and go to college. I can't find the link, but NPR recently ran a story about innovative schools that are starting maker spaces. All schools used to have that, it was called shop class.
These moves from the trump administration seem to me like closing the gate after the horses have already bolted, and stand to harm what manufacturing jobs we have left as well as pissing off our allies.
Especially your point about automation. Now imagine a world where the US can make things again at a cost competitive rate due to automation. Ok, now look at how those goods would be taxed overseas...
We still would have an export problem due to other country’s protectionist tariffs.
The point of the trade negotiations is to get better terms for US exports. This is critical as we come to a turning point in manufacturing.
I also agree with your analysis of the current situation, I just don’t believe the current situation will be as it is for long.
It makes so much sense when you say it like that.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/trade...
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-10-23/local/me-683_1_trade-...
If you don't remember, this was supposed to boost the economy and we would replace all the blue collar jobs with high paying service industry jobs.
The jobs went away but I didn't see any new jobs being created in north GA or western NC.
But, and this is a big but, I also want to be able to sell to China’s growing middle and upper class.
That’s what this is about.