I don't see how that's different from saying corporations have some kind of duty to create jobs here. The standard is not "can" a job be done here.
The standard is where can the job be done in a cost-efficient way. If that is China, India or Mexico, that is where the jobs will go.
The only way to stop that migration to cost-efficient labor markets is (1) reduce our tax and regulation burden so that our labor market can compete, or (2) essentially "force" corporations to employ Americans, which equals some kind of Socialism.
We should not try to force a corporation to do something that does not make economic/financial sense. That's insane. If America offered the best deal for, say, manufacturing widgets, there'd be no trouble getting corporations to manufacture widgets here.
This is the way it happens for all countries. Japan and Korea, for example, outsource a lot of their auto manufacturing to the U.S. Why? Because it is migrating to growth. Its growth in auto sales is in the U.S. At some point, then, it becomes cost-effective to go ahead and manufacture the autos here. Same, to some extent, with BMW.
If these auto companies could make more money building their cars in their own countries, then shipping them here for sale, they would continue to do that. But the more cars they sell here, the more cost-effective it becomes to manufacture the cars here.
No doubt there are Japanese and Koreans wailing that their auto companies have a duty to give them, not the Americans, those manufacturing jobs.
Our economy is going to have to adjust to the reality of the global economy -- the fact that all the big companies now can go wherever they want in the world to do business, so long as those countries allow. And they will. Used to be, for example, call centers all went to India. Now, as always happens, wages there have continued to rise to the point that it is becoming just as cheap to have call centers in the U.S. So more will be here. This will constantly shift.
We have to focus on attracting corporations from all over the world to our labor force (through tax policy and less burdensome regulation), and on taking the brakes off the creation of businesses that will inherently operate and create jobs in the U.S.
The jobs WERE done here, they were already created. American corporations exported these jobs. Do corporations have an obligation to this country or not? Should corporations contribute in elections?