How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries.

We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is that a world where “Designed by Apple in California, Made in China” still makes sense? What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario?

What seems most likely to me in the future is that the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now. Dominating finance and services won’t mean anything when both the IP and the physical products are being produced somewhere else.

> US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now

The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive leadership and not getting bogged down in consultations, would make a big difference.

The UK stepped on its own rake because it was obsessed with tiny, already vanished industries like fishing. Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. It's not actually where we want to be. While real UK manufacture successes (cars, aircraft, satellites, generators, all sorts of high-tech stuff) get completely ignored. Or bogged down in extra export red tape thanks to Brexit.

To improve reality, we have to start from reality, not whatever vision of the past propaganda "news" channels are blathering about.

> The UK stepped on its own rake because it was obsessed with tiny, already vanished industries like fishing

This isn't just a UK issue:

"Fishing is a relatively minor economic activity within the EU. It contributes generally less than 1 per cent to gross national product."[0]

and if you look beyond fishing, agricultural policy as a whole is - not sure how to put this politely - not easy to understand:

"The CAP is often explained as the result of a political compromise between France and Germany: German industry would have access to the French market; in exchange, Germany would help pay for France's farmers [..] The CAP has always been a difficult area of EU policy to reform [..]"[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy

For another "not just the UK" example france has managed to persuade the EU not to buy british weapons out of the extra defence fund unless the UK give France some of it's fishing rights. Can you imagine being Poland and not getting the best anti-tank weaponry, or the best missiles because you want the french to have more fishing rights?

Completely barking mad.

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-rejects-eu-plan-tie-defen...

> Completely barking mad

Well, we'll see that and raise you the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

The EU could get rid of this idiocy overnight, except - well - France.

(I have nothing against the French, I've visited France dozens of times and have many friends there.)

"Once a month the European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg at a cost of £150m a year as lorries transport paperwork."[0]

"Top EU official brands Strasbourg shuttle 'insane'"[1]

"EU parliament’s €114m-a-year move to Strasbourg ‘a waste of money’, but will it ever be scrapped?"[2]

[0] https://news.sky.com/story/meps-on-the-move-madness-of-stras...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/05/eu.politics

[2] https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/20/eu-parliament-s-114m-a-y...

Pretty sure you could engineer France leaving the EU by just tweaking fishing quotas, farming subsidy, naming on sparkling wine or removing (as you mention) strasbourg. They will start a riot and then when you don't give in, they'll be gone.

I'm not saying it's what happened to the UK, but we asked for what we needed, got turned down and then left.

What did the UK ask of the EU before Brexit?

All I remember was Cameron asking to expel jobless immigrants, which confused the EU as Britain was already allowed to do that.