Bringing Manufacturing Back Into The United States The Rest Of The Story

Let’s start with an agreement that Donald Trump cannot wave a magic wand and have manufacturing back in a day or two. However, if The President does not start somewhere, we will all be sitting around grousing that he did not follow through on his promises. Over the past 100 days (well documented) he has been able to get major foreign and domestic companies to commit to building new plants in a number of sectors. Some of these companies are as follows; Project Stargate $500B, Apple $600B, NVIDIA $500B, Micron Tech $200B, IBM $150B, J7J $55B, John Deere $20B Plus some 20 other companies. Will it happen overnight, NO, but it is a darn good start.

In truth, you are correct in noting Joe Biden’s CHIPS and science act in 2022, signed by Joe himself to help bring back chip manufacturing to the US . Now is time to review how that went. By March 2024, analysts estimated that the act incentivized between 25 and 50 separate potential projects, with total projected investments of $160–200 billion and 25,000–45,000 new jobs. However, these projects are faced with delays in receiving grants due to bureaucratic hurdles and shortages of skilled workers, as well as congressional funding deals that have limited or cut research provisions of the Act by tens of billions of dollars.[14][15][16]

OK, now that we agree on variable timing of new manufacturing, we can address some of the underlying issues that caused major manufacturers to go to other countries.

In reviewing your story about Hoover Vacuum Cleaner you noted that when Hoover closed the plant in 2006 some 3600 union jobs were lost. “The Bush Administration did nothing to stop this.” Again,  the rest of the story. On December 8, 1993 President Bill Clinton signed into law NAFTA – North American Free Trade Act which allowed companies to pursue investments across borders. What did this mean, “cheaper labor south (Mexico). Did the US suffer, yes, were union jobs lost, yes, were factories closed, yes. I don’t think the Bush administration had anything to do with this, it all falls in the lap of President Clinton.

We should agree that major manufacturing companies were complicit is the job loss. Why did Unions lose so much, was mostly their own fault. Let me give you my interaction with unions over my work career, three to be exact;

1. White Motor Corporation and the UAW. As a System Analyst trying to install a new payroll system working with the UAW was impossible. I might note at this point that even the office staff were in the union. In order to get information to create a new system, I needed to talk to some of them. In order for this to happen, I had to make an appointment with the union steward to have them sit in on the conversation, as you might imagine some of the interviews were put off several weeks. In the midst of this ordeal, the company announced that they were moving to Virginia.
2. Parts manufacture for the appliance industry. I was working on the shop floor attempting to do some process improvement when it was announced that the company was going to open a mirror plant in Mexico. The plant in Mexico would not be getting new equipment but the old equipment from the existing plant and the existing US plant  would be getting the new equipment. The union thought it was a joke and treated the new machinery with disdain laughing at the Mexican plant. Within 6 months, Mexico (on the old machines) were out producing the US plant  in volume and quality. 6 months later the US plant closed and moved it all to Mexico.
3. This is a short union story. I was working with a company on the brink of going out of business and I was tasked to see if I could make them more productive. One of the biggest areas of productivity was in the machine setup. I was able to develop a simple method taking a setup up from 8 to 2 hours. How did the union react, they set up the machine in the new way 2 hours then sat and did nothing for 6 hours. That business closed.

Is it all the unions fault, no, however they were responsible for a large majority of closings.

Noting early on, that manufacturing needs skilled workers, Manufacturing Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Draftsmen, Computer Coders, and many more in associated lines of work. Then where is the United States going to get all those workers? Will we need to reopen our borders and allow more migrants to come here because we need their labor? Does open borders help finding skilled workers,  NO.

 We need to quit calling President Trump names and help him Make America Great.

In closing, the words of Eleanor Roosevelt comes to mind, 1) Great minds have and explore new Ideas, 2)medium minds follow the media and 3) small minds talk about people.