Comment by robomartin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robomartin | Hacker News Reader

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> If you've worked in manufacturing your whole life, then you likely know that U.S. manufacturing output is at or near all-time highs.

The fallacy in these numbers is that manufacturing output does not measure the origins of the supply chain. In other words, if Ford makes lots of cars and, say, 75% of what goes into making those cars comes from abroad, we measure the end-product value in calculating manufacturing output and ignore the fact that virtually none of the parts of the car are made in the US. For example, the Ford Mustang Mach-E only has 13% of US/Canada parts. The Buick Encore, 2%, etc.

Source:

https://www.carscoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MY2025-...

Manufacturing output does not measure anything that is actually relevant to the root issues in this discussion. It's a number politicians can use to make people believe they are doing a great job. In reality, its, well, fake news. It's like saying that someone looks fantastic while, in reality, they have stage 4 cancer eating away at them.

> The reality is that long-term profitability comes from specialization and value-added production, not from trying to manufacture everything, especially low-margin goods. Even China recognizes this.

Anyone in industry understands full-well that trying to manufacture everything is in a range between foolish and impossible. The message --well, my message anyway-- is that a future where we manufacture nearly zero is the problem. We will not get to zero, of course. However, as I like to say, you are not going to float a sizable economy purely on AI, web development and Etsy trinkets made in your garage. A robust industrial base is critically important. We don't have to make everything, but we should be able to make a lot more products than were we are today. And, as I discuss in another comment, having a single point of failure (pandemic: we could not make masks, medical supplies and equipment) is terribly dangerous.

> The fallacy in these numbers is that manufacturing output does not measure the origins of the supply chain.

Manufacturing GDP is based on value added, the difference between the value of output and the cost of intermediate inputs (including imported parts). So, if Ford imports parts but adds value through design, engineering, assembly, testing, and quality control in the U.S., that value is counted in U.S. manufacturing GDP. Imported parts are subtracted to avoid double-counting.

U.S. manufacturing GDP is at or near all-time highs. We are nowhere close to “manufacturing nearly zero.”

That said, you raise an important point about over-dependence, which is a real issue. The pandemic exposed how fragile our supply chains are, like the inability to produce basic medical supplies. The U.S. had not treated the manufacture of masks or even components for weapons systems as strategic capabilities worth preserving.

But that’s a far cry from the claim that "we don’t make anything anymore." We do-and we make a lot. The challenge is ensuring we can make enough of the right things when it matters and keep the markets as free as possible.

> We are nowhere close to “manufacturing nearly zero.”

In relative terms, we don't make anything. The problem is that this is largely invisible to people who are not in the business of making things. Manufacturing is crucially important to an economy. Note that I did not say "assembly". Most of what we do (US and Europe) is assembly from parts made mostly in China. That's why manufacturing output is not a measure of the gradient we've been descending.

Let me make a parallel with the Amazon third party seller story.

When Amazon opened the doors to third party sellers there was a rush of entrepreneurs looking to sell all kinds of products on the platform. Because you can't make almost anything in the US any more, this mostly consisted of people finding products in China to white label or, in very few cases, do create their own products to manufacture in China. You'd order pallets full of product, ship them directly to Amazon warehouses and you were off to the races.

Lots of people made lost of money. Millions.

At some point, their suppliers, the very same companies they sourced products from in China, realized they could list the same products on Amazon on their own. And that's precisely what they did.

The lack of barriers to entry made it brilliantly simple. Their cost basis was much lower. American and European third party sellers were decimated. I don't have statistics on how many survived. Through participation in my local business community, I happen to know many people who were selling through Amazon. They got destroyed. In many cases their suppliers came into the market with products the American companies developed (and paid for the R&D) themselves, ignoring all IP.

At a larger scale, that's the problem we are facing. We don't make anything. If a company like BYD were to be allowed to enter this market, US auto manufacturers would be destroyed within two to five years at most. Gone.

So, it isn't about making everything. It's about making enough to be resilient and actually have an industrial base. It's about being manufacturers, not assemblers deeply-dependent on China and others.

Okay, but now you're moving the goalposts. First it was "we don’t manufacture," now it’s "we only assemble." Let’s not forget - it was the United States that invented the assembly line, revolutionizing global manufacturing.

In today’s world, assembly is a critical part of manufacturing, especially in high-tech and complex industries. Modern global supply chains are designed for efficiency and specialization, not 19th-century-style autarky. Trying to reverse that entirely isn’t just impractical - it’s economically and strategically self-defeating.

The real challenge isn’t whether we assemble or forge every bolt - it’s whether we maintain the capacity to innovate, produce, and adapt when it matters. That’s the future we should be building toward.

It’s also worth noting that the U.S. doesn’t just lead in value-added manufacturing - it dominates global finance, which is arguably even more critical in shaping the modern world. The U.S. dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency, U.S. capital markets are the deepest and most liquid, and American financial institutions are central to global investment and trade.

This financial dominance gives the U.S. enormous strategic flexibility, from funding innovation to influencing global policy. Manufacturing matters, but economic power today is multidimensional - and the U.S. still leads on many of those fronts.

> Okay, but now you're moving the goalposts. First it was "we don’t manufacture," now it’s "we only assemble." Let’s not forget - it was the United States that invented the assembly line, revolutionizing global manufacturing.

Not really. Maybe I am not doing a good job communicating the point. It's about supply chain dependencies.

If the parts needed to make a Ford F150 were available from Europe, Latin America, China, Africa, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, etc., you have supply-chain flexibility and low probability of single-source exposure. It isn't about making everything here or in Europe. It's about not being in a situation where a failure of any kind (trade war, real war, pandemic, etc.) takes down your entire industrial based because you might have a 90% single-source dependency.

I was involved in developing technology for a program launched by the government of Singapore after the pandemic. They call it the 30x30 program.

During the pandemic, Singapore realized they only produce 6% of their food in the country. The pandemic stressed the one or two supply chains that --quite literally-- fed them. This was terrible and very dangerous in the long term. The 30x30 program was a result. The intent is to reach 30% in-country food production by 2030.

That's what I am talking about. Assembling isn't manufacturing when your entire manufacturing industry can be shuttered due to a highly monopolized supply chain.

You realize companies multi-source their components to minimize the odds of their supply chains being disrupted? That's what's meant by supply chain management? The pandemic revealed several supply chains have a single choke point for processor chips. Biden took action to fix that with the CHIPS Act. Even so, these problems take years to work out.

I think you misspelled "Congress with bipartisan support" there

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