Promises of a US manufacturing Renaissance leave experts scratching their heads

Manufacturing is increasingly done by robots.

This is true in China as well as the USA.

Example: Hyundai has an auto assembly plant in Mobile Alabama that builds new cars using less than 20 hours of human labor per car.

Tariffs are nothing but a huge new consumption tax. Tax increases rarely lead to job creation and consumers pay the price for it.

Business favors predictability and consistency. It doesn't matter so much what politicians do so long as the business and financial market is predictable and consistent for long periods of time. Markets have enough volatility without politics adding to the mix. Businesses by and large aren't going to make significant investments in increasing US manufacturing without that predictability and consistency. There have been a few making promises to invest in US manufacturing, but you'll notice the details are always scant and a timeline is rarely mentioned. As such, it's understood to be posturing for the current administration in order to curry favor.

It's not just Trump, it's also US public who thinks that domestic manufacturing brings jobs. Even Destin Sandlin (Smarter Every day guy) hinted it in a recent video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZTGwcHQfLY

Manufacturing as share of jobs declines even in those countries that are big at manufacturing. China, Germany, Japan, South Korea. China buys half of worlds robots. Manufacturing can create only very low paying jobs that people do in third countries.

You can bring more manufacturing but not much more jobs. Most likely the lost comparative advantage means net welfare loss if you force it.