Yes. And even if we could wave a magical wand and materialize a whole new city (or region) with thousands of new factories and also a workforce complete with training, and housing for them, and new universities to continue the training for them and their children, and new power plants to supply the power and water needs of this new region as well as a transportation infrastructure to support all this new economic activity. New airports, new rail networks, and new shipping ports. Even if all that could happen instantaneously, the result of all these new Made-in-USA goods would still be astronomically higher prices for all Americans. The US is one of the most expensive places to live in the world, and all these factories have to pay those high prices both for their construction and for their ongoing operations. (I'm assuming here the magical wand only speeds time. It doesn't produce investment capital out of thin air.) So protective tariffs would need to continue on indefinitely so all these people could keep their very expensive jobs and all Americans would be paying the bill for it, forever.
I saw a study years ago that compared US made vs foreign made products and found that most imports had US made alternatives that were not substantially more expensive. Walmart made a big push to increase their percentage of US sourced products a few years ago. With the increase in automation, the labor costs aren't as much of a differentiator.
I'm not sure this small price difference will continue since I assume a reduction in imports might result in greater demand domestically and those factories might not be able to easily scale to absorb the shift.
Survivorship bias. The only US made goods left are those that can compete with foreign production. You cannot use those remaining as evidence that all goods could be US made without significant price increases.
>With the increase in automation, the labor costs aren't as much of a differentiator
and unsurprisingly, the imported goods are the goods that are still heavily reliant on labor cost.
If automation was possible, it would be the preference of any business to use that over human labor, simply for the consistency of output and ability to control cost factors. I do believe this to be the case in most instances.
Thats why car companies have long advocated for tariffs on imported vehicles (and is one tariff we have consistently held for a long time).
Yep! Though I guess that weirdly does get us back to some version of the 1960s/70s America these tariffs are supposed to revive: Where things were expensive (relative to buying power) but you bought them forever and might even know the people who made them.
If people will be happy to buy locally-made furniture for triple the price and having it last longer is a different question.
