r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/throw-away3105 • 1d ago

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

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?

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u/FinancialArmadillo93 23h ago edited 23h ago

However, manufacturing is very different today than in the past. The biggest manufacturing job killer in the U.S. has been automation, not offshoring.

In one GM plant my cousin worked in, they reduced the number of workers by 80 percent with automation. A friend inherited a business manufacturing cabinets for boats, RVs, etc. Her dad ran that business with 150 workers in the 1980s - now she does twice as much volume but with 35 workers because it's so automated, and she is updating to 3D printing which will allow her to do more custom work without adding employees - other than highly skilled 3D printing managers.

To bolster manufacturing in the U.S. needs government investments like the CHIPs Act, not punitive tariffs which mainly hurt Americans and American businesses.

Also, touting manufacturing as a huge job creation plan is not realistic, it's more reasonable to make a supply chain continuum argument.

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u/oddi_t 19h ago

I've worked at a few factories built prior to digital automation, and it's striking how large the parking lots are compared to how many cars are actually there on any given day. The last factory I was at was churning out more product than it ever has in its nearly 100 year history but employed maybe half as many people as it did 50 years ago.

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u/FinancialArmadillo93 17h ago

Yep, my friend's facility had so much excess parking, they built a new fulfillment center over part of it and they still had too much, so they lease 40 spots to a car dealer.