"I don't know what the typical career progression in manufacturing looks like, but if you can be replaced by some freshly hired 22 year old in China, you're probably in the bottom rung."
The point is that economic policies can make it so that a career in manufacturing in the United States does not need to compete with a career in manufacturing in China. To keep standards of living high in the USA, we need to wall off companies from undercutting and destroying our workers wages. It doesnt matter if it can be done cheaper in China, when we allow that it ruins the quality of life for American citizens. The only people it benefits are the people running the companies here in the USA and the people in China. The rest of the United States slips further towards being a third world country.