America Trends Podcast

America Trends Podcast


EP 825 Does America Have a Strategy to Reshore Lost Manufacturing Jobs?

January 06, 2025

 We have been talking about returning manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt of the Midwest and the once vibrant manufacturing hubs of the Northeast for a long time.  Almost since much manufacturing moved offshore about 50 years ago, leaving behind empty husks of buildings, environmental damage and broken lives. Yet doing so is easier said than done.  America has become an economy known for its innovation, strong service sector and a consumer-driven economy.  Yet, manufacturing jobs, not the old sooty ones, but advanced manufacturing has a multiplier effect on an economy, helping to generate five times its value for every person on the factory floor.  While the Biden Administration passed major pieces of legislation to reshore, for example, our chips and clean energy industry, it is not enough to make us the once great manufacturing engine we were in the mid twentieth century. The incoming Trump 2 administration is looking to tariffs to do the trick. The reasons for our demise in this area are many. How we regain that dominance is an open question given the remarkable advances by China and others in supplanting us in this regard.  To discuss all of is Harry Moser, the founder and president, of the Reshoring Initiative(reshorenow.org).