America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

There are plenty of people saying these tariffs will not work.

But a person used to be able to graduate high school and get a job that could support a house with a yard, a car, a non-working spouse and children.

How we get that level of prosperity back? That's the people really want. Tariffs are simply a means to that end.

I wish people would stop writing articles about 100% criticizing tariffs and instead write articles 50% about criticizing tariffs and 50% brainstorming alternative solutions to achieve the same objective.

> There are plenty of people saying these tariffs will not work.

Work to do what?

> But a person used to be able to graduate high school and get a job that could support a house with a yard, a car, a non-working spouse and children.

Why do you think this has anything to do with tariffs or manufacturing?

> How do we get that level of prosperity back?

Better pay for the jobs people actually work. Reducing inequality by preventing the richest 0.1% from capturing all the massive gains in wealth the US has seen over the past few decades. Removing regulations that prevent the country from building housing and therefore driving up housing costs. Switching to a healthcare model in nearly any of the comparable developed countries almost all of which deliver better healthcare at half the cost. Not expecting everyone to be able to live a completely unsustainable suburban life. Having the government support children's upbringing by paying for high quality education, instituting rules and regulations that require mandatory paid maternity/paternity leave, etc.

Lost of poorer countries manage to do this and more just fine. The US is far richer than most of those countries.

Very little of this has to do with manufacturing jobs falling from 18mm to 13mm.

> Work to do what?

Bring back manufacturing, and make the US economy work better for workers.

> Why do you think this has anything to do with tariffs or manufacturing?

Because usually the best-paying jobs were in factories, especially if you didn't have a college degree. A lot of towns in the Rust Belt were economically dependent on a local factory -- think cars or steelmaking. Often, part of the reason these factories were so high paying is because the jobs were unionized.

Companies moved overseas to save money on that expensive labor.

Now, companies have all the negotiation leverage. "If you unionize / demand higher pay, we'll move operations overseas" is a real and credible threat, as countless companies have already done it.

Tariffs are supposed to make operating overseas more expensive. Undo the economic justification for moving the jobs overseas and they will come back.

This takes away the companies' negotiation leverage. The "If you unionize / demand higher pay, we'll move operations overseas" threat isn't credible if everyone knows overseas manufacturing is super expensive due to tariffs.

I grew up in the Rust Belt and I'm old enough to properly remember when some of those factories were still operating. I saw with my own eyes what used to be a respectable blue-collar community decay into an economic wasteland. The drugs are getting bad. A lot of people have lost hope. Young ambitious folks see no reason to stay here.

The problem and its underlying factors are so obvious to me that I'm constantly amazed to see well-informed, intelligent people who don't seem to understand it.