https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/01/11/everyth...
I'm in the area with the very Caterpillar plant mentioned there.
The tiny amount of manufacturing they have tried (and mostly failed) to bring back pales in comparison to what the US used to produce.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=manufacturing%3Bqu...
It takes up less of the economy of maybe, and we might focus on upscale things that have less consumer visibility like industrial stuff, but manufacturing in the US seems to be in an OK spot.
Also the rest of the world’s pie grew, which is also fine.
The US made everything… for a while, after the rest of the world had blown up all of each other’s factories. Nobody is hoping for a repeat of that whole mess!
Further, from a purely economic sense, outsourcing makes the most sense. Most people will be able to by everything for much cheaper which more than compensates for the lost jobs in one area. We also have record high employment. So from a purely economic perspective, we are doing great!
To me the real issue is the strategic importance of certain manufacturing areas. China can build 200 military ships in the time we build one. 20 subs in the time we build slightly more than one. We need to get our military supply chain back in shape if we want to remain globally dominant and keep us and our partners safe!
Setting China as an outlier that does reshoring/industrial planning at the expense of the [American] worker is a politic fantasy. It forgets that reshoring is a global phenomenon also found in democracies [1] that is rather the result of a more uncertain world where logistics change with the success and wanning of political favors and alliances.
[1] https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/econ...