China is a manufacturing phenomenon because they have lots of people that will work really cheap and basically no regulation. Companies can do whatever the hell they want over there. Also, being on the other side of the planet, it’s handy for distribution everywhere. Every aspect of building is cheaper, and distribution breaks even.
Meanwhile of course, the China obsession is missing the changes in the world. American (and non-American) companies are building factories all over the world, the big growth area right now is Latin America. Most of our cars are being built there, Mexico and Brazil are major manufacturing hot spots.
It’s not central planning, it’s good business. If you want more manufacturing in America you need to make it a good business decision. And the path to that is NOT tariffs, all that does is make businesses move elsewhere. You make China bad they go to Mexico, make Mexico bad they’ll go further south, make that bad they’ll go to India.
If we continue to put Americas last, there will be a socialist/communist revolution, kind of the opposite of what economic Liberians want.
Getting back to tariffs, they can reduce or even eliminate income taxes, help balance the budget, promote domestic manufacturing and strengthen the country monetarily. All good things.
The 30 years of destructive industrial policies need to be stopped and something new tried. Not much left to loose.