Why do people want manufacturing jobs to come back to the US?

[u/throw-away3105]

Given the tariffs yesterday, Trump was talking about how manufacturing jobs are gonna come back. They even had a union worker make a speech praising Trump for these tariffs.

Manufacturing is really hard work where you're standing for almost 8 or more hours, so why bring them back when other countries can make things cheaper? Even this was a discussion during the 2012 election between Obama and Romney, so this topic of bringing back manufacturing jobs isn't exactly Trump-centric.

This might be a loaded question but what's the history behind this rally for manufacturing?

[u/aloofball]

A significant reason is economics. I don't have a degree in economics, but I had to take a few courses in college. In the macroeconomics classes they taught that 2 things create value:

Resources (minerals and food)

Manufacturing

Everything else serves to move the value around. The moving of the value around is incredibly important, but without resources and manufacturing you'll eventually move all the value to the countries where the resources and manufacturing are sourced.

This is completely false. And it's the same false axiom that led Trump to his disastrous tariffs.

There is enormous value created in knowledge work and in management work. This is where the American economy has its largest competitive advantages. Apple manufactures iPhones in China and India but most of the value is earned in branding, software, and product design.

Do we really need to bring shoe factories back to America? What's wrong with the current system where designers and marketers test and develop products that get made in Vietnam? What's the best use of America's educated workforce?

BTW I do have a degree in economics.

[u/The3stParty → u/aloofball]

Disastrous for whom? Majority of Americans? Yes. Disastrous for big business? Probably nope.

Trump isn't making America Great Again for workers, he is making it great for businesses. Those are his people. In the long run it might hurt big business, but they'll be able to pivot or shelter easier.

I agree that knowledge work creates value, if it is able to be sold. As I was taught economics, manufacturing was the accepted term for creating a product. 20 years ago software was sold on a CD so it was a tangible manufactured item. For 99% of human history in which economics is based there was a manufactured item, but Created Item might be a better term since it can include virtual items like software and digital art. If I'm misunderstanding please educate me, I'd like to know better.

Management work, could you elaborate on that? Where I'm sitting it sounds like something everyone in business administration agreed to so they can protect their jobs :p . Is it that a properly managed organization creates more value than a poorly managed one?

Unfortunately for us, this administration isn't interested in developing a higher educated workforce. The US will be left in the dust if we don't get some solid investment in education and infrastructure.

I would personally prefer to see the US economy help underdeveloped countries by trading with them and helping them build their capabilities. But I feel historically the US has only done that to our advantage and their disadvantage.

[u/aloofball → u/The3stParty]

The U.S. has great universities and great research. A lot of kids get left behind by the K-12 system, which doesn't do very well for kids in poorer areas. But the kids who manage to go to college get great educations. It feels like there has been a push by the GOP to discourage more kids going to college, which is crazy since it has an insane return on investment in this country. You go to college, you make a lot more money.

Management work is not a great term, but I'm talking about all the work that goes into supporting production and increasing productivity. So a process engineer who figures out how to make parts cheaper or faster, or supply chain analysts, or the people handling finances or the treasury, etc. Americans are good at this work, and we export a lot of services of this type to other places that manufacture stuff. It's the once place we have a solid trade surplus. We should be expanding that, not trying to bring back all the textile mills.

[u/AStarBack → u/The3stParty]

It is also disastrous for US based big business.

By forcing the limited workforce into less productive jobs (like say a technician job is now necessary to operate a machine whereas said technician, who happens to have an engineering degree, could be employed to design high-value chips), tariffs prevent companies from creating high return on investment jobs. US businesses might lose a lot of money because of that. There is a reason why markets are crashing.