Do you mean we should start making our own TVs and DVD players? You already pointed out that China has five times our population, and thus a greater pool of available cheap labor. We cannot hope to compete in that area; we cannot profitably reorganize our labor to produce cheap consumer goods. I don't know what the answer is, but I am convinced that that isn't it.
I disagree.
We need to build, protect and keep a complete set of manufacturing plants.
For all things. This will need us to modify the way we protect American manufacturing, but we cannot continue to strip away our own manufacturing.
We need to bring back US manufacturing. For everything. I’m not saying we need to keep out imports, but what we’re doing now is frankly ... suicide.
We need to protect our own manufacturing, at least a bit.
There should be the thought process, behind a carefully thought-out process to make and keep our manufacturing plants.
But we need to start. Now.
America needs manufacturing.
For a nation to survive it must have the active capability to feed, clothe, and shelter its inhabitants at the very minimum. Next in importance is the ability to provide for an educated populous and the common defense. In modern times that means high tech and manufacturing. For that you need engineers and German class mechanics. The more manufacturing you have in-country the bigger the talent pool you have pursuing these disciplines. The big fish in a big pond will always be bigger than the one in the little pond.
If you are a globalist who doesn't mind living under a global feudal system then the present destruction of America shouldn't bother you, but if you do value what is left of these last vestiges of our Free Constitutional Republic then you'll be the biggest and loudest "Buy American" proponent there is.
It's okay to be a chauvinist for your own country.