Exactly why US manufacturing is struggling.
I suspect the new 100% tariff on China imports might fix that.
Tariffs aren't a fix all. Especially the shotgun approach with no specific plan.
In many cases the small businesses are getting hurt more than any benefit they receive. Steel prices increasing? Other metals including copper? That not only impacts the tiny edge tamers, but increases the cost of building new production facilities. Are the basic production tools also being imported?
It is quite possible that if you force the foreign competitors to double their prices, you'll see an almost identical price increase of any domestic products.
The outsourcing trend has been happening for decades. At least since Nixon was president. For some reason the big manufacturers across many industries chose to outsource, or rebadge small consumer grade products. And that has been happening... forever... At least since the era of the Ford Courier, Chevy Luv, Ram 50, Chevy Sprint, GEO Metro & group, etc. The Ford Capri from decades back might have been a symbol of the globalization of the market. It was the European model made by Ford Europe. So it was brought to the USA as largely minimally modified from the European version.
And in the tractor industry, is there a single general purpose tractor under 50 HP that is mostly made in the USA? Perhaps specialty tractors by Toro, Jacobsen, etc, or small skid steers. And even so, many have imported engines. That wasn't the case in the 1950's. It isn't really about "Bringing the Industry Back"... the little plastic John Deere tractors just never were made here.
I've been puzzled a bit by the industry evolution. For some reason the foreign imports have been far more dynamic than American industries.
When Craftsman was mostly made here in the USA, the chunky Craftsman wrenches were basically the same for decades. But even so, they started importing more and more electronics over time, and eventually just about everything new was imported, while the USA still cranked out the chunky wrenches.
I've been watching Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Not everything they do is overseas. One of our local bicycle manufacturers uses them from time to time. But for small gadgets, it seems to be preferable to go from prototype to production using Asian resources. That almost seems to be more of an industry design than anything else. Having an industry already designed around plugging in new products, and companies that welcome doing work for other companies, or having their products rebranded.
Maybe I'm not seeing what is happening behind the scenes, but perhaps the USA needs more effort to push production from inspiration and prototype by small companies to full domestic production. Perhaps a government program to work with industry?
Can we get back to full industrial production here in the USA? Perhaps. But it will evolve significantly.
A CNC plasma machine or CNC Laser cutter (or even welder) is getting far more available to small businesses. Small industrial robots? Making those edge tamers 100% welded aren't necessarily bringing a lot of highly skilled jobs to the USA. Likely it would be highly automated, and humans would be mainly moving chunks of steel around. Ideally one would do large sheet CNC cuts, and any scraps would be used for the smaller items like the edge tamers.
Keep in mind that Tariffs are never one way. US Farmers will get pounded with the fallout. I'm not a soy farmer, but apparently in some areas it is critical for crop rotation. Cut out the soy market, and we have a big mess.
I really think that Trump's movie production tariffs will actually help foreign competition more than it helps the USA as it may ultimately price the US industry out of the foreign markets.
