Hard to compete with the cheap labor express, and labor, safety and environmental standards on par with the Middle Ages.
Nope, not if you remove THE problem: federal government’s economic inference and forced higher costs of doing business.
How did America successfully compete with the Middle Ages up to through the 1920’s as the richest and most powerful nation on earth? BY THE FREE MARKET, NOT BY GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.
Labor, like any other part of the manufacturing process, is a commodity, and,like any commodity, the money will flow to the most cost efficient source. That may not have to mean moving jobs to other countries, but it makes that decision a whole lot easier when you can shake the feds off your back, not have to deal with union thugs, and actually return a profit to your shareholders.
As far as slave labor goes, if slavery is ever found in a company’s supply chain, send every executive to jail. However, definitions matter, and if you ask someone working for a sweat shop whether the 3 dollars they earn in a week is slavery, they will tell you that it is better than the 3 dollars a year that they earned before the factory.
A tariff, like any other tax, will always be paid by the final purchaser, namely, you and me.