That sounds like a liberal argument. You are basically saying business will do the wrong thing unless the government sets up all kinds of regulations to force them to be good. Am I wrong, or did you just espouse the Democrat thesis?
It is government regulations that are causing the imbalance and the flight of manufacturing overseas.
So a change in regulations or the elimination of most of them would make manufacturing more profitable here.
China did not steal our manufacturing. The US government forced manufacturing to leave.
Chinese wages were a fraction of wages in the US before I was born And that was a long long time ago.
Container freight has worked to their advantage. In my younger days, every item shipped by sea had to be in a heavy wood crate, which really was a box. Much more costly than container freight.
Ships were unloaded a box at a time.
So more economical shipping helped the Chinese, but that alone is not enough to give them a major advantage.
What has forced manufacturers to leave the US:
The EPA, high taxes, labor unions and a host of other impediments.