In the long term, it isn't even necessarily damage. Chinese manufacturing won't be cheap forever; wages are already too high there for them to continue sorting through and recycling the US's plastic. Rebooting US manufacturing earlier rather than later will make the transition to "expensive China" less of a jolt.

I wouldn't underestimate the quality of the supply chains in China. They've had decades of development and experience, and starting elsewhere could not be done without significant setbacks.

Some low-end production had already been moving to places like Vietnam, based on labor costs where Chinese labor costs are now > places like Vietnam (and have been for a while). Trump's trade war has accelerated the trend.

Arguing the other way is that you have suppliers for, say in electronics, literally everything in places like Guangdong. So that's a disincentive to move.

In Africa we have started to speak of China as the modern age colonizers. They are appearing everywhere, building roads, airports, dams and coal fired power stations. They bring all their equipment. We have challenges with governance (understatement). In my home country we have severe power shortages, daily power cuts lasting up 18 hours. Chinese are building a power station. So picture the day we try assert some right and China just switches off the power. This kind of scenario is playing itself out in Africa and I fear by the time we wake up China will own the continent. I exaggerate but I think you get my point.

If I was a Chinese strategist, I would announce a root and branch re-certification of the 737-MAX (in Chinese of course) as a completely new type.

Especially have just buttered up Airbus with 300 A320 orders in March. And even more so if I was convinced the C919 will certify in 2021.

There also aren't many places to sell aircraft by the hundreds.