The problem with bringing back manufacturing to the U.S. is that Americans don’t want to buy expensive American-made products. If they did want expensive, American-made products, we’d still have our factories.
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Americans don’t want to buy expensive American-made products… when given the choice to buy cheaper alternatives.
When the tariffed alternatives are priced similarly on the store shelf, the American-made products are more attractive.
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Yes. I concur.
Trump has talked about this for decades, and as the world learned and changed, he did not. As well he has a carpet bagger and dumb as a sack of bricks Peter Navarro, but he went to jail for no reason BUT trump loves loyalty. Another Rudy Giuliani. OMG!!!
As much as I like Trump over the crazy lefty he ran against… and others in the party, he keeps racking up the deficit and debt and has tanked the stock market (temporarily anyway).
I don’t think his tarrifs/threats were ever about imposing them. They were about saber rattling and getting other countries to bow down. Fair enough I suppose… as long as the market recovers.
DOGE, etc.? It’s pretty much all for show. There’s been no real reduction in the deficit and he’s actually talking of ramping up spending and lowering incoming taxes. WTF is it that no president can reduce the deficit? They all talk about it but don’t carry through.
And, when he talks of all the craziness of the last administration and all the waste, etc. he is finding… that didn’t all just start in the last 4 years. He was in charge for 4 years, 4 years ago.
I’m not sorry I voted for him but would sure like to see more real, meaningful action.
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Well I hope that isn’t the master plan! That just means price increases on everything for Americans. How is that pro-American?
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Americans can’t afford expensive American made products. If our government wants US Americans to buy more US made products, they are going to have to make things like housing, education and healthcare more affordable.
They say to live the American Dream, buy a house; raise a family; retire comfortably; a family would have to earn more than $100.000/year. But two-thirds of American households earn less than that, 50% earn less than $75,000.
Most Americans can’t afford US made products unless they’re willing to give up the American Dream or continually be in debt. There is always a trade off.
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I agree.
Here is an interview that aired yesterday of a business man which gives us an idea of what the stupid Trump tariffs are currently doing to his business and will continue to do going forward.
Bottom line, even if everything was reversed today, damage has already been done.
Cost of a dog harness according to this business owner:
Made in China and sold here: $34.00
Made in China with current tariffs: $86.00
Made in America: $114.00
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Maybe the plan is for average Americans to be able to afford American made products 
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The problem with American manufacturing is regulation and unions. Get rid of those and the jobs will come back.
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For decades politicians have continually allowed offshoring of our manufacturing and many other functions (i.e. telephone type jobs) in an effort to give Americans cheap products and services. This was not done to benefit Americans and instead was done to help ensure their re-election. Long ago anyone with a brain could see what affect that would have on the supply chains here.
Had the politicians instead worked to strengthen American businesses and eliminated the reasons they were offshoring (regulations, taxes, lack of tariffs to prevent cheap junk from flooding the country, etc.) then we would not be in the mess we are today! Prices would have gradually increased with inflation instead of all of a sudden now because Trump is trying to right the ship. As prices gradually increased other positive factors would also have gradually increased to help reduce the inflation affect. Also Americans could plan as well for these gradual price increases.
You certainly can not blame Trump for trying to do what every politician before him (President as well as all other politicians) did not have the balls to do which is make America first. I certainly hear lots of crying out there about Trump trying to make America great again and that was a very appropriate phrase. My advice to the criers is Suck It Up Buttercup and hang on for the ride, tighten your belt a little, get off your Junkie Trips on cheap foreign junk, and wait to see what happens!
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We spend all of our money supporting a bloated government.
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Nothing you have said in this post is pro-American. There was a time when most things were produced at home. People could work for a manufacturing company their entire lives, live on one income and retire. And we all survived and had the little widgets we needed to operate.
If cheap widgets is what you think make America strong then we will disagree.
I like this.
And I believe American competition and ingenuity will bring down prices more and more over time.
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Look at the coralation between the labor unions and increased regulations as to when manufacturing was shifted to China and other countires! As the Unions grew the manufacturers shifted production in order to maintain their profits; as regulations were increased more production was shifted. A lower cost workforce and less regulations equal higher profitis. I’m not sure how to work around this but the labor unions are a huge part of this equation of bringing back production to the USA.
Other countries will step up and take over much of what China has been producing. Apple phones and computers is a good example. They are moving some production to India for items sold in the USA. Vietnam is and has beome a huge shoe producer. Just a couple of examples.
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Agreed.
So you can’t support it? Where does awareness and accountability begin? As a reminder, the President is not Congress; he has limited powers.
Therefore, it is not for show. It may not be as effective as whatever our expectations were, but it is effective, depending on your matrix.
Cheap as in inexpensive, yes. That’s what I want.
Raising prices on Americans and then worse: having that precious capital go to the federal government in the form of a tariff is not anything I would ever support. The federal government doesn’t need any more of our money. It is roughly 100 times larger than it should be already.
Now if the tariff money didn’t go to D.C. and instead stayed in our local communities, I’d have a different opinion.
Let’s wave the magic wand and government is reduced to its original purpose and out taxes are miniscule.
How does that offset the negatives impacts of offshoring our manufacturing considering those markets are closed to our manufacturing?
We have sold off our stake holders for stock holders. And we are paying a heavy price at home. I want to buy a couch that puts an American through college or helps them buy a home, not some child labor camp in a foreign communist country.
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“External Revenue Service”? That’s just a phrase he made up for dumbasses like you who do not understand that tariffs are taxes paid for by US manufacturers, a cost passed down to American consumers.
So, please explain to me genius; how is he going to make American made products cheaper by increasing the cost of foreign made goods? How is he going to eliminate taxes when in reality he would be shifting the tax burden from the American worker to the American consumer? How will we make American made products more affordable effectively reducing our dependence on foreign made goods while simultaneously generating enough revenue from tariffs on foreign made goods to eliminate taxes?
DOGE has been busy discovering WASTE, eg. money that was already spent/wasted.
You can’t pay off debt with spent money. You gotta find unspent, available money to pay off debt, thus the cuts to free up funds to work with.
Do you pay your mortgage with money that your wife already spent/wasted at the spa last week?
But the problem is that most Americans don’t. Again, most Americans shop price and want the best value. Foreign companies produce good products for a good price. If Americans actually wanted to help fellow Americans buy a home so much that they only bought stuff made-in-America, we’d still have factories. Your fellow Americans have spoken loud and clear.
Now if your solution is to make products cost more with tariffs, you are simply taking money out of Americans’ pockets and food off of their table, making it even harder for them to buy a home.
Anyway, I know what to do. And it isn’t taxing Americans and giving their precious capital to federal bureaucrats. OMG, how dumb is that?
I’m a MAGA BTW, but dumb is dumb.
My hunch is that the 10% tariff on pretty much all foreign goods that we have at this moment IS the ultimate goal, after a bunch of upcoming trade deals that are made with a slew of countries that lower some or all of the unfair barriers to U.S. goods. The exception, of course, will be China and some other countries with targeted higher tariffs in specific sectors needed for national security reasons. That should help U.S. industry.
One big potential advantage the US could have is the cost of electricity. We are sitting on a mountain of coal and natural gas, which could be used to keep electricity pricing reasonable, which ties into regulation.
On the regulation front, I suspect that Zeldin is going to do what he can to eliminate Federal regulations at the EPA. As an example, he just eliminated a bunch of rules that were killing coal power so that active coal plants still running can remain producing cheaper electricity.
Some smart states will take advantage of the federal rule changes and other states will not.
On the labor union front, the primary answer is going to be massive automation - more robots. Toyota and Tesla are the models. Toyota could probably run a theoretical “lights out” factory right now - cars assembled completely by robots with no overheat lights needed for humans. Tesla is not far behind with all their factories totally within the U.S.