Thanks for the article.
It is not just several good arguments about why manufacturing should come back to the USA from China (reshoring) - it is actually happening.
Investment in new manufacturing capacity in the USA has grown in the last few years, and new money has pretty much stopped going to China. Lower cost producers in Asia have picked off a lot of China’s low-end investment, and the USA is getting some high-end, and some close to the source type of products.
They mention the USA’s cheap energy advantage from fracking, but oil and gas are also feedstock materials themselves for making some products like plastics, fertilizers and a bunch of chemical processes.
The price of oil and gas may fluctuate, but other factors which the article points to will likely increase steadily. Increasing speed in the supply chain and lowering of inventory and transportation costs demands local supply. Increasing automation/robotics will dramatically narrow the labor cost differences, which was the major reason for off-shoring.
Rapid technical innovation is something we excel at, and which the Chinese can pretty much only steal - another reason that companies have been starting to avoid them.
We won’t gain as many jobs, but we will gain some very good ones, a nice shot to GDP and additional tax revenue.
China will be well and truly screwed. The Government there may have to try to convince a hundred million young adults to go back to rice farming or something. They won’t have the big trade surpluses to spend on their military buildup, without printing excess money.
So we are well positioned for an economic boom if a good President comes in next term, and the Republicans hold the Senate (it will be a tough cycle). A few reforms could bring a flood of investment and growth.
3D printing on all levels, along with the bringing of graphene and carbon fiber reinforced plastics down to affordable levels will increase those trends, in my opinion.