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Thanks for your post. My husband is a precision/prototype machinist and the state of the industry is in dire times.

I think the only way we could possibly turn this around is a good old-fashioned boycott of ALL products made in China. Now, I'm going to sound like a union rep, but if the consumers in America would take the time to look at where the products they are buying are made, and ONLY bought items made in the U.S. could we possibly turn this around?

My personal experiences are making it harder and harder each day to support the whole "free trade" notion. When I see my husband's company going down the tubes cause they're moving their semi-conductor manufacturing lines to China the word "traitor" comes to mind quite frequently...

A good approach would be two fold. Firstly, get real about who is on the restricted list in terms of export controls. The PRC need to be in the same category as the DPRK, Cuba and Syria. Yes, it would hurt, we'd have to resource things only made right now in the PRC and contract manufacturers and OEMs with plants in the PRC would need to move to places like Thailand and India. But in the long run, we cannot afford to put our continuity of supply (especially military sub tier raw materials) in the hands of a convergent Confucian-Communist anti Western regime. Geopolitics trump free trade in cases like this.

Secondly, we need to enforce with extreme prejudice the existing export control laws versus the existing lists. Now, a few of you may be thinking, but we are talking about imports, not exports. Well, you have to export a spec in order to get those imports, and export control laws govern that. They also govern any time you open a factory overseas, or even an office overseas. If either the factory or office are within your firewall, export controls apply. Same deal for hiring H1Bs or transfering L1As. Export controls apply not only to exported hard goods but also exported documents, software and other forms of intellectual property including even live face to face meetings with nationals of other countries.

There's one big problem with boycotting products made in China: With many products today, in every retail store ALL the product from ALL manufacturers are ALL made in China or occasionally in another low-cost producer like Mexico or Malaysia. Sometimes you can find an American producer by searching on the internet and buying online or over the phone, but you can forget about finding many light-manufactured American products at Wal-Mart or Target. For example, if you want to buy a vacume cleaner every single model sold in retail stores is made overseas, mostly in China. You might be able to go online and buy an Oreck vacume cleaner that could be made in America.

Personally I think we are not getting tough with China on trade policy because China is quietly propping up North Korea and using the NK nuclear threat as a weapon to keep us from getting tough on trade. We will not get tough on trade with China because we need their help to eliminate the nuclear threat from NK. Meanwhile, China is stalling and not putting enough pressure on North Korea so they can continue to use this issue against us. The Chinese government is not a friend of ours, but is really a two-faced adversary.

" I think the only way we could possibly turn this around is a good old-fashioned boycott of ALL products made in China. Now,"

Problem is. How do we do this? Do we just outlaw the agreements put in place during the Clinton years? And lets us face it, it is not just China. It is the whole frigen world of companies, how the are managed in each country, where the banks put their money for investment purposes, on and on.
There are no simple answers. We have allowed to much to slip in the past. I think it could be called short term profits.
But then, we in America generically claim we love free trade, we love free competition.

So when you sadly write: "When I see my husband's company going down the tubes cause they're moving their semi-conductor manufacturing lines to China ...."

What is the answer. It has gotten to the point that this company either cannot continue fabricating the IC here and
maintain a given profit margin, or they have suscomed to the short term profit syndrome, whatever.
Sadly many people in those clean rooms are going to lose their jobs. More folks out of work with little chance of finding like work again. Clean rooms for those not savy, are the special areas where the integrated circuits are actually manufactured. Then other areas such as wire bonding the integrated circuit into a package comes into play. If this company is moving it's semi-conductor lines off shore, then most likely all phases of the operation will eventually move. Those that package the IC, test groups comprised of engineers and technitians that test the parts will also move of shore eventually. It seems to happen every time. Depending on how large this company is, it may fire a few thousand people or more. Depending on what the companies final product lines are, perhaps only the top managment which of course would include the money folks will remain.
Then of course in two years the company will announce that in order to stay alive it most move it's fiancial departments to India. Get the picture.