Trump's manufacturing dream is a mirage

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Fareed Zakaria

At the heart of the Trump administration’s policies is one overarching goal: in Vice President JD Vance’s words from a speech this week, it is to stage the “great American manufacturing comeback.” Donald Trump believes that the key to transforming the United States along the lines that he wants — economically, socially and politically — is to revive the factories and foundries across this country. Unfortunately, not only is it highly unlikely to happen, but the efforts to move in this direction will be costly and damaging for Americans.

The idea that America should make more things is a seductive one. We all think of a rich and powerful country as one with huge factories belching smoke, churning out stuff and selling it to the world. It is deeply imprinted in our minds. But it is an image of the past, not the future. The most advanced economies in the world today are almost all dominated by services. Services account for the vast majority of jobs in the world’s richest industrialized countries. In the U.S., services account for more than 80 percent of all nonfarm jobs. Manufacturing is less than 10 percent. America’s distinctive exports to the world are software and software services, entertainment, financial services, and other such intangible things — and in these, the U.S. runs not a trade deficit but a surplus with the rest of the world.

Why this transformation? Because, as people get richer and better educated, they spend more money on services and not goods. In 1960, U.S. consumers allotted more than 50 percent of their consumption spending to goods. By 2010, it was only 33 percent. And the money for companies is not in goods but services. A sneaker might cost 25 or 30 dollars to make; the value is in the design, marketing and sales that allows you to sell it for $100. Which part of this product would you rather your workers be involved in?

Over the past 40 or 50 years, manufacturing as a share of the total economy and manufacturing jobs as a share of total jobs have steadily declined in almost all advanced industrial countries. U.S. manufacturing jobs made up around 25 percent in 1973. Today, they make up about 8 percent. You see very similar declines in Britain, Canada, and even places that were traditional manufacturing strongholds, such as Germany, France and Japan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/20/trump-manufacturing-mirage/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Trump's tariffs are about something else.

Nothing to do with a return to manufacturing.
The US will never make cheap goods again.

[rich7862]

2. trumps dream of re-manufacturing products in America is a flat out lie.

/a joke trying to appease his lies to his fans.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. He justifies his tariffs with the desire for more American manufacturing

But in reality he just gets off on being a bully and a prick.

[Mopar151]

4. I would beg to differ with those that believe a "service-based economy" is the best we can do!

It's the money people! I've been in manufacturing for my working life. Manufacturing often gets "outsourced" and "offshored" simply because financially oriented managers find it burdensome and vexatious!
Many times, it's because skilled trades people are more intelligent, well read, and experienced than the "bean counters" and "phone talkers". Which gives "management" fits, as they are much more comfortable buying finished products than dealing with the myriad issues of producing them, particularly when they have to "learn on the go" like all their blue collar help has had to every day.