Regulatory and tax reform will do more to attract industry to the US than any new trade policy. Automation continues to be the main enemy of manufacturing employment.
“Automation continues to be the main enemy of manufacturing employment.”
No. A LACK of automation is the problem. When competing countries have cheaper labor, you need to be able to produce more per man-hour. Then, to preserve or expand employees, you need to produce more volume.
We should be focusing on expanding demand for manufactured goods while we make production cheaper by expanding volume. That way we get MORE manufacturing jobs while we produce MUCH MORE product at cheaper cost than more labor-intensive less-automated countries. There are billions of people who don’t have a pot to piss in. There are more billions waiting for the next new thing — flying cars, tunneling machines, self sufficient off-grid housing, yachts, floating man-made islands, dirigible motor-homes, or whatever. Products that are simultaneously better and cheaper than the previous model preserve and grow market share and competitors find the market has moved on by the time they gear up. Remember that nobody knew 100 years ago they wanted a TV, computer, or cell phone.
Of course, that will require more electrical generating capacity at cheaper costs and much better re-use of scrap materials to make “recycled” raw materials cheaper than virgin raw materials. Disposable products are fine if it takes little cost to remake the materials into a new generation of the item. China has gotten better than we are at manufacturing using the old “automated” methods, so we need to leap frog to new methods.