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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

You need an educated, skilled and plentiful workforce for global manufacturing.

US has taken concrete steps in the last 100 days to reduce all three.

The strategy of the US has been Hegemony. Friendly foreign partners were intended to take over industries we did not want in our own backyards for political, diplomatic, economic, or environmental reasons. For a stint in college I was an International Relations major and this was 100 series education. At a basic level this is discussed as the “Pollution Haven Hypothesis.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_haven_hypothesis

A political/diplomatic example is rebuilding the Japanese Steel industry after WWII so they could regain self sufficiency. Until we decide to shoot ourselves in the foot hard enough we’ve had a consistent trading partner in high quality steel ever since.

The current “strategy” is painful because it has the weight of the past 60-70 years working against it.

I dunno. This reads to me like an attempt to retroactively justify the effects of US policies that were aimed at a different purpose. I don't think I've ever seen an American politician say that they'd prefer for industry X or Y to be located in a different country.

Just going to ignore the Marshall Plan and Reverse Course policies then I guess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course

This isn't some retroactive attempt to justify something. This was the actual policy at the time.

I don't think either of these policies intended or caused other countries to "take over industries we did not want in our own backyards". In the 50s and 60s the US still ran consistent trade surpluses.

Factories also require global supply chains. Not the United States strong point at the moment...

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