Early 1900’s people from all over the world came here to work in the garment Industry. They produced all the garments for us and even the Russian Army during WW II. Remember the “Look for the Union Label” commercials? Nice American shirts for $10, but when they became higher priced than the $2.99 ones from Japan, average Joe Worker, looking to keep under budget chose the cheaper ones. Why buy 1 American for 9-10 dollars when you can buy 3 for the same price made in Japan. The owners of all the clothing factories were loosing money because they could not compete with the imports. The AFL CIO who controlled the garment industry were at a loss, because as the factories closed, the union members disappeared. The national stores competing to make profits had no choice because the customer who for the most part are the middle class, were looking for bargains, just like today. WE want a minimum wage of $15, but the person in Bangladesh is happy with 60 cents an hour. So if you want to make widgets here it will cost you about $150 or you can get them from Bangladesh for $15. Well if you were a business man, what would you do? Its only a mater of whether you are happy driving a 1999 Chrysler or a 2016 Mercedes-Benz GLE-Class. The real bottom line is we have priced ourselves out of the manufacturing market. Can we compete? YES! By putting tariffs on imports and using Added Value Tax. Its hard for me to believe we have to import steel while our own mills are closed. I can understand where Trump is coming from when he says lets make America Great Again. I only wish it was as easy as it was to come up with a slogan. The ultimate snake oil salesman? Really? Well he’s got a lot of competition, there are 537 more of them in DC.
Your recounting of the destruction of textiles in the US does not quite track with reality. Production was offshored not to lower prices but to increase profit margin. There was no era of choosing the cheap foreign shirt or the expensive US made shirt, US production slowly ceased as production was moved offshore, and prices did not drop, they slowly increased. The textile industry was largely non-union. The pay was low, the benefits minimal.
Thanks for a well written response. One seldom gets a thoughtful response whenever anything is said against Trump.
Your math is way off. Ridiculous.
Labor for the average manufactured good in the USA is 8% of retail price. Take cars, union labor the most expensive kind, is 8% of the cars retail price. If you made the cars in Bangladesh they would be 8% cheaper. Your example of a 10X cost increase is border line psychotic.
Labor is a small part of the cost of a manufactured good.