Trump et al. really run a motte-and-bailey argument here. They woo reasonable people who agree that critical industries: food, energy, defense-adjacent, metals, etc. - must have substantial capacity on-shore or at least very near. They then flip to what amounts to massive handouts for his rust belt base, basically saying we should make everything here.

The obvious answer is this:

1. it doesn't matter if our t-shirts are made in Bangladesh.

2. it does matter if our stuff is made in an enemy nation (china).

3. U.S. labor is too expensive to move back to mass manufacturing the way we used to do it, c.f. baumol's cost disease.

4. offshoring and illegal labor have suppressed investment in automation and manufacturing technology for decades, which will be painful to undo.

The sensible outcome of these facts is

1. Focus on moving everything out of china to other cheap countries with reasonable levels of human capital.

2. Focus on re-shoring critical industries.

3. Launch moonshot investments into robotics and automation. Bringing back a big chunk of manufacturing is sustainable; bringing back jobs is not.

4. Invest in large-scale roll-out of SMR energy so we have reliable power for this new industrial build.