Guess who taught the Chinese how to make computers to compete against HP. Probably HP. The problem with corporations is they tend to teach the Chinese and Indians how to catch up with the US thinking they will limit themselves to manufacturing only. Once the Chinese and Indians reach a technical level, then the CEO’s will proclaim that they cannot keep the factory in the US primarily due to high US labor costs. Even if the gov lowers taxes and eliminates regs it will not replace the lucrative profits of lower labor costs. Result is China’s military will gain the technology to make weapons and the Chinese gain the knowledge to make lower cost knock off of our high tech products and eat our lunch, while they will erect trade barriers for our goods and investments in their country. The socialist Dems are not our friend, neither are CEO’s. Ask a businessman where he would draw the line on doing business with Communist China a potential enemy of the US. He will be very uncomfortable with answering the questions on where his priorities (loyalties) will lie. In other words American CEO’s has the loyalty equivalent to an American Communist and Muslim and we don’t need them in our society if we want to survive as a nation in the 21st Century.
What is the basis for thinking that US labor is - or should be - immune to international competition? Has an alien bestowed a magical dispensation that all the other nations of the world are bound to acknowledge and respect?
Maybe there are noble American businessmen who bullheadedly are determined to keep high cost labor to the detriment of their company’s ability to survive, long term. Well, rotsa ruck to them.
I saw this situation first hand. I worked for a privately owned company who was a leader in design and manufacture of heavy machinery.
During the 1970’s company sales were down which caused severe financial strains for the owners. So here comes an offer from Chinese Gov’t that they would pay several million dollars for purchase of all engineering knowhow.
That flow of funds probably saved the company from going under. The Chinese were shrewed in purchasing engineering knowhow developed over 50 years of R&D. It is not that the owners of company were anti-American or anti-workers. It was a choice between survival or going under.
You also have to remember that Americans do not have the monopoly on technical smarts. In the age of jet planes and World Wide internet, it is impossible to build a wall around the United States. If we did that, a pair of shoes will cost you $129 instead of $29.
I don’t think you are advocating stopping our foreign trade.
So there is little choice but to live with foreign competition. Low skilled manufacturing jobs will get increasingly harder to retain in US, so long as the disparity in worker wages exist. But wages are rising in all countries. For example many Japanese companies have set up manufacturing plants in other low labor cost Asian countries since wages in Japan are much higher.