That is the essential fact!
>> There are many things that aren’t being made in America because they can’t be made here for a price that American consumers will support due to our country’s existing tax/regulatory environment. No tariff can change that. <<
Agreed completely.
But that ain’t half of the story. The more important reality is that if a dictator ruled the USA and decreed tomorrow that all the toys, electronics, appliances, furniture, shoes, home furnishings and clothing imported into the USA must henceforth be made here, we simply wouldn’t have the labor force to accomplish the requirement.
Moreover, even if we put every able-bodied American adult and child to work making such labor-intensive products as most of the items sold at Walmart and Target and Sears and your local retailer, we’d still probably come up short — not to mention the fact that we’d have to stop making cars, repairing computers, laying fiber-optic cables, cleaning clothes, eating in restaurants and growing food.
But don’t breathe a word of this reality to the latter-day petty mercantilists who worship at the foot of a Ross Perot or a Pat Buchanan or a Dick Gephardt or a Donald Trump. They won’t be interested in analyzing the problem and showing logically where you are mistaken. No, they’ll only be able to call you pejorative names and hurl childish insults.