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Peter Goodman who covers the consequences in the lives of ordinary people of the industrial changes going on around us, gives this report from Michigan. He shows how today's Michigan, was home to Henry Ford's automobile plants that made it a major part of the industrial revolution in the US after 1910, when Ford's first assembly line manufacturing was set up in Highland Park, Detroit. Industrial growth till 1960 made the US the leading industrial nation in the world. Followed by Japanese imports and auto manufacturing shifting to Asia and Mexico, that led to deindustrialization and neglect in Michigan and the midwestern US.  Key aspects of resurgence today is coming from lessons learned in the period of deindustrialization. From labor and management not working together, from huge pension obligations and costs that had to be overcome, that made existing wage and cost structures uncompetitive with Asian manufacturing. Labor concessions in the last decade have made a rearrangement of cost structure possible, yet along with the financial crisis of 2008 further worsened worker incomes. The first steps of a return for Michigan to its role in the early industrialization of America, the new labor contract negotiated in 2023, the support of president Biden and the government, the investment in the new technology of electric car manufacturing by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Goodman shows how the state, federal government, community colleges and other educational institutions training workers and students, and car companies are working together to promote interests of workers and communities. There is uncertainty created about the fewer parts in the electric car manufacturing process, automation advances, and fewer jobs. Yet the process is a transition over many years and this is accepted by the Biden administration and by the industry as it responds to slower demand for electric cars in 2024. This provides the time to bring up new training programs for workers, enable the funding of new research into battery technologies that would bring down the cost and make electric car prices accessible to the wider population. Uncertainty and fears about the transition are counteracted by the effort the Biden administration is making to bring up all manufacturing and to make large investments in American manufacturing.   ...

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WSJ tells the story about Biden being slow to act in 2021 and 2022 to close the Southern Border, without telling the complete story and all the facts. Biden did close the Border in 2024 by executive order- when Trump blocked passage of Republican Lankford's legislation in Feb 2024 supported by Biden to close the southern Border. No mention is made that Biden was faced with a once in a century pandemic, winning the fight for vaccines over skepticism, and on Feb. 22 2022 Putin launching an attack on Kiev, Ukraine, and negotiating to get the crumbling infrastructure of the US rebuilt, funds for CHIPS and Science. On top of this the Venezuelan economy completely collapsed leading to an unanticipated migrant surge. Only FDR and Lincoln faced so many huge challenges and tackled them one by one. Without these facts the result can be to stall the biggest boom in manufacturing under president Biden/Harris that America has experienced since the space race in the 1960's. ...

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China chooses periodic blockades or air-sea coordinated exercizes around Taiwan's 12 mile waters as a strategy to respond to US Indo-Pacific strategy of keeping lanes of sea traffic and navigation on oceans open to all nations. This is seen as less risky than an outright invasion. Military exercises in August 2022 are seen as preparing for such a strategy.  The US is the destination for $541 billion and Europe $521 billion in products Made in China in 2021, which make China the manufacturing powerhouse in the world. Without the export of $1 trillion in Chinese products thousands of factories and millions of Chinese workers would remain idle. It is unbelievable that China is risking so much with its Taiwan policy with no idea of what the consequences would be years from now. It took China three decades after the gradual opening by 1990 and a willingness on the part of American and European governments and business to give up much of their own manufacturing leading to loss of jobs in communities across both America and Europe and much pain from this loss, for China to get to $1 trillion in exports. This situation may never come back as the supply chains shift and jobs return home and to countries that are becoming competitive in infrastructure and capabilities in Asia. Such competition between nations is not unknown as it was with Imperial Japan in the Pacific just 100 years back. The US maintains its position as keeping navigation on the oceans of the world open and rule of law, and it is on these foundations that China was able to get the strong manufacturing and exporting position it has now that no nation has enjoyed in history to this extent. Only the British come close in the nineteenth century. So much of China's progress in the twentieth century was a result of cooperation and support from America, from the first university Tsinghua in Beiijing, to the war against imperialist forces of Japan, to the rebuilding of China's manufacturing and technological competitiveness with American business cooperation. ...

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What we bring is scale, says Teskey, co-founder of Brookfield Asset Management, which has set a target of $25 billion for 2 private funds for climate action. $10 billion has been raised and it continues fundraising. $2 billion from the UAE for energy transition fund and $1 billion for emerging markets transition. Additional fund raising will take place for emerging markets fund. Across all its funds Brookfield says it has raised $100 billion for investment in renewable power and energy transition projects. The demand for renewable power comes from cities and companies looking for cleaner ways of powering everything from data centers to manufacturing. It also comes from regulations on climate and from generous incentives offered by governments. The demand for renewable power from corporates, says Connor Teskey of Brookfield, is simply overwhelming. Teskey and Mark Carney, the former head of the central banks of UK and Canada and the point man on climate for the UN, are co-founders.   Total global energy transition investment was $1.8 trillion in 2023, a 17% increase from 2022, and yet this is nowhere near the needed investment of $4.8 trillion for climate goals needed annually for 2024 to 2030. Lyrarc.com will track these investments in its Climate Change Action part of the site. Brookfield is looking at cutting emissions in what is a broader strategy. whih means it will invest in fossil fuel projects where it can significantly cut emissions. This includes cement and steel makers.    ...

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Bill Clinton, a former president, is no longer a popular figure in the Democratic Party in 2025. A new generation of leaders in the Democrats seek to put Clinton in the past. Clinton's main achievement are the peace accords in Ireland and in the Balkans with Serbia and Croatia, Bosnia. In domestic policy Clinton did little to anticipate the problems of getting health insurance for all, outshoring, and increasing jobs and wages for factory workers. He was involved in the scandal with an intern that led to efforts to impeach him and resulted in much of the second term being wasted in the process. It was under his successor Bush that the egregious provision that removed the power of Medicare to negotiate prices of drugs with manufacturers was passed. Bush was pushed into the war in the Middle East after 9/11 attacks by Middle East terrorists and havens in Afghanistan, that led to a two decades war in Afghanistan. Withdrawal happened under DJT and Biden consuming resources and time leading to the affordability crisis, outshoring of jobs and lower wages for factory workers. No one talks now about Clinton, Bush, Obama, because of these wars and the loss of America's leadership in manufacturing, squandered resources of attention, time and money that would have created new infrastructure and health insurance for all, inshoring. ...

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The US Federal's half percentage point interest rate cut bodes well for stocks and bonds in the US, says this report in WSJ, as it reduces the burden of interest rates on small business that has a part of its debt in floating rates. The default risk component of rates also shrinks for large and small companies. A lot depends on how much the US is investing in manufacturing, in chips and science, in education, in infrastructure that reduces the costs to business and in its industries, which is the ultimate driver of growth. In this sense the Biden administration and Jerome Powell's Fed have accomplished a remarkable deal in the difficult period of the pandemic's four years 2020-2024. Much remains to be done yet this is a big deal, and the next president can leverage these strengths to set the US on the right path, the Way Forward for America.

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By 2024 Dholera Special Investment Region airport and the expressway linking Ahmedabad to Dholera will be operational, says India's Union Minister Piyush Goyal. Developed from scratch on vast stretches of land in the Gulf of Khambat 100 kilometres from Ahmedabad it is expected to be India's best manufacturing zone,  comparable or better than any manufacturing zone in China. It is part of the industrial effort to build world class manufacturing zones in India that fit in with the shift of manufacturing from China as part of the redesign of world supply chains to avoid overconcentration in any one part of the world.

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German economy contracts in second quarter 2024 by 0.1%. Growth is forecast at 0.3% for 2024 and 1.1% for 2025, according to country statistics office Destatis. The contrast could not be greater in Biden's management of the economy as US economic growth was much higher at about 2.8% in 2024. It shows the positive effects of Biden's effort to revive American manufacturing, and to support chips and science and American industry, and the investment of a trillion dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act in American infrastructure. Without these investments American recovery strong at this time would have hobbled along with much worse effects on jobs and inflation, and looming recession, under a Trump administration. Unusual factors such as the concentration of the supply chain in China have influenced US inflation, which Biden is correcting, and also bringing jobs at home. The economic management is excellent it  is the effects of the pandemic and broken supply chains, high mortgage rates and 20% price increases in apartment rentals that are making cost of living a problem for average Americans. Biden has taken cost of living action including canceling student debt and calling for limiting rent increases for apartment rentals to 5%. Harris has a program to support renters when housing takes up more than 30% of their income. ...

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Chase bank investments in strategic companies of the US with the US government in a Jamie Dimon effort October 2025. Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon says- “It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing—all of which are essential for our national security." 

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Construction spending in manufacturing was $108 billion in 2022. Total manufacturing employment is at about 10% of the private sector. About 800,000 jobs were added in the private sector in the last 2 years. The total number is 13 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 800,000 additional jobs are ready to be filled. For years after World War II the growth in manufacturing was at 4%. Today the growth will be higher after incentives introduced by president Biden in different sectors from semiconductors to electric vehicles.  In other products from eyeglasses to socks and bicycles there is a shift to adding factories in the US to be able to fill increase in demand and for stores carrying less inventory that can be replenished quickly from home factories. The supply chain problems and logistics cost increases during the pandemic have driven home the need for having supply from within the US or very close to the US in Mexico or Canada, or friendshoring in India or Vietnam. ...

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The Russian economy had GDP decline of 2% and was relatively not affected by the shutoff of imports of oil and gas from Europe in 2022. Gas exports to Europe began declining in the summer. The EU ban on seaborne oil from Russia and price cap went into effect in December 2022. Russia made a huge stimulus of 4% of GDP in 2022. The result is that only now in 2023 is the full impact being felt on the Russian economy.  WSJ reports that in January and February Russian exports of oil and gas revenue which makeup half of the budget fell by 46% year over year, while state spending jumped 50%. Analysts estimate that it would take a price of $100 for Russia to balance its books. Yet the Group of Seven price cap on Russian oil has brought it down to $50- the price the Ministry of Finance says Urals crude sold in February. This is a deep discount to the $80 price of Brent Crude, the US benchmark.  A bigger problem is the downward trajectory the Russian economy faces in future years. Worker shortages are severe for industry and a shift to wartime production does not add to productivity or productive capacity. The cut off from access to western technology and western financial markets will have a severe impact in the productive capacity for the economy, for oil and industrial production in the years to 2030. Russia needed to protect against the gradual shift away from fossil fuels to fight climate change by shifting the economy in a new direction using its access to western technologies not just China's technologies. Instead it now finds itself in a period of 1 year in 2022 when oil revenues surged with prices jumping from the war, and then a steady slump in all the inputs of development- supply of labor, capital and technology declining rapidly after 2023 as the costs of the Ukraine invasion are absorbed into the economy. As this report points out it is the social contract that similar to China's social contract of growth and improvement in standards of living that led to people having a large measure of confidence in the government. It was not fully grasped but it was the access to American and European Union plus Japanese technology, manufacturing, capital and markets that made this possible. With this absent the situation changes to put Russia, and China to a lesser extent as long as it trades with the west, on a different trajectory.  ...

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Sanofi will use its manufacturing plant in Ridgefield, New Jersey, in the US to fill vials and finish packaging of 200 million doses of Moderna vaccine, under a new agreement. This will supply the US under Moderna's US supply of vaccine agreements that run through April 2022. This is part of industry collaboration to expand supply of global vaccines, that includes Merck and Novartis.

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What Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is learning from its effort to build chip plans in Phoenix, Arizona, is shown here by John Liu in NYT report. Different cultural practices about work exist between Taiwan and the US and both sides are learning to adapt to the new situation. These Chip plants are part of the effort of the efforts of the Biden administration to have Taiwanese and South Korean companies to invest in America. Following this learning curve the chip manufacturing plants will go into production in 2025.

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In Biden's favor the midterm elections showed that for all the concerns about that election Mr. Biden navigated each situation well drawing support from all segments of the population. There was much skepticism about the passage of legislation to invest trillions in chips, science and infrastructure, Yet by winning two key votes of Manchin and Sinema president Biden got the job of investing in America done. The Inflation Reduction Act also kept the president's priorities for helping the average worker and families. At the outset of his campaign for 2024 president Biden faces low ratings. Nate Cohen points to lower support from non white voters. Yet when one looks at the 2020 elections and the last midterm elections it is clear that America is moving back to the days when white voters in all income groups support of the Democrats remained strong. The Obama period could be a temporary situation of Democrats having lost their anchor in manufacturing communities and trade unions as well other segments of the population, depending on 90 percentage points of minority support to pull through. Biden is headed back to the days of Wilson,  FDR and Truman, when whites less educated or more educated gave their support to the Democrats. This makes independent voters crucial and Biden's appeal has to be based on how much he can deliver to voters in infrastructure, in jobs and in hope- the prospects of America for the younger generation. Economic prospects of America can further improve in 2023-2024 as Biden's program for Investing in America moves forward rapidly.    ...

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Pfizer and Moderna's plans to make mRNA vaccines in Africa, Asia or Latin America may take much longer than 2022. The solution to producing an mRNA vaccine in Asia that could be mass manufactured and distributed throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America is now at hand. Gennova based in India, is partnering with Seattle startup HDT Bio to attack the problem of temperature and scalability in manufacturing for a mRNA vaccine that acts as a global solution using India's manufacturing capabilities. Dr Singh who founded Gennova, says- "We wanted to solve the problem of the scalability issue, and the temperature issue. If we can solve these problems, we are building a solution not just for India, but also a global solution." Gennova received seed funding from the Indian government. Other companies in Brazil and South Africa lack the manufacturing capabilities or financing needed that exist in India. The Indian government has achieved an initial goal of one billion vaccinated in just 6 months. The next step for India in its health infrastructure buildup is a mRNA vaccine that is an improvement over Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that can be stored easily, adapted for variants, and manufactured in large quantity as a global solution. ...

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Major changes have happened in CEO's in 2019-2021 for major American companies in aerospace, automobiles and information technology hardware. Patrick Gelsinger is new CEO of Intel Corp. With Gelsinger come $95 billion in new investments in the US manufacturing of chips. Dave Calhoun is new CEO of Boeing as it increases investments in US manufacturing capabilities. Jim Farley is new CEO of Ford Motor Company. With Farley come billions of dollars in new investments and a shift to electric cars and electric car technologies. All three companies had new Chief Financial Officers within months of new CEO';s assuming their new roles.

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In making his announcement to run for president in 2024 president Biden told a trade union audience that for Mr. Trump reviving American manufacturing was merely a punchline- not much happened. Krugman in this NYT report shows that Mr. Trump never acted seriously to directly make that happen. President Biden has passed legislation that creates trillions of dollars of investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, chips manufacturing, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Krugman says in addition to what the government is spending private companies are also planning to invest trillions of dollars. As a result the US is in the process of building its manufacturing base for the first time after decades of neglect under the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump administrations.  Economists have created a major handicap for investments in manufacturing with theories that are no longer relevant, and by their lack of understanding of the realities of workers and families in the US as manufacturing shriveled. They never figured into their analysis the loss of tax revenue base supported by factories in the US that led to disinvestment in towns and communities across the US. As public services and investment in these communities dwindled without the local revenues to support them. Mr. Krugman lacks the keen grasp of these issues that Biden as the longest serving Senator in the US has. Biden had so much time on the ground observing the situation in Scranton and other parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and much of the midwestern US seeing what happens first hand as factories close. Krugman is not able to make the case that manufacturing so truly needs. Yet even Krugman has some sense of the big changes underway in the US that Biden has created that will lead to the renewal of America. ...

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Wessel describes the changes in American manufacturing as it goes through some of the same changes that happened in Germany in the years after reunification. With high unemployment German manufacturing companies worked with unions and the government for wage restraint over the last decade, resulting in wages barely keeping up with inflation. The increase in productivity and wage restraint helped Germany become more competitive with factories in Asia and Eastern Europe. Wages are now increasing with larger wage increase negotiated by the unions in Germany, as skilled labor is becoming scarce. In the U.S. Labor Department figures show an increase in output per hour in American manufacturing of 13% in the last 5 years and 21% in the five years before that. Typical of the wage changes in manufacturing- American Axle & Manufacturing plant in Three Rivers, Michigan hires assembly workers at $10 per hour, with older "legacy workers" making $18 per hour. General Electric brought back manufacturing work from Mexico paying workers $13 per hour for new hires, compared to to $21- $23 in prior years. At GM, Ford and Chrysler workers make $16-$19 per hour in base pay compared to older workers with legacy rates of $29-$33. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows earnings for production workers in manufacturing averaging $19.15 per hour in April, which is where they were in 2000 adjusted for inflation. The impact of this large increase in productivity with new machinery and production methods, and the wage reductions in manufacturing, is a return of offshored jobs. Wages increased in China and Mexico in the last decade. After a 35% decrease in the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. from 1998-2010, the number of jobs has increased by 4.3% to 11.9 million in April 2012, according to the Labor Department....

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The US F35-A jet comes to the Aero India in Yelahanka, Bengaluru. The focus of Aero India is forging partnerships with foreign companies for developing home country manufacturing capabilities. The goal is 'Make in India, Make for the World.' The Hindu gives pictures of Aero India 2023.

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This article in the Los Angeles Times "Shifting tides for Obama in 2012" puts things in perspective for the situation Biden faces in the 2024 campaign.  The LA Times points out in its report by David Lauter October 30, 2011, that among white working class voters the defeat Obama experienced in 2008 will turn into a rout in 2012. It says the rising racial diversity and increase in college graduates were only two factors helping Obama and this also was in doubt in 2012. The 2009 financial crisis had led to high unemployment and poverty among Hispanic households and also affected black people. The soured economy put Obama at risk in 2012. The rout among white working class voters for Obama in 2012 turned into a complete rout for Clinton in 2016. The Obama coalition looks like a one time affair and an aberration in America where white non college graduates almost all vote Republican. By putting white working class and factory voters firmly in the Democrats camp as they were for the last century and building a strong economy and manufacturing Biden now brings back the America of TR, Wilson, FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. By putting the struggle to improve the lives of working people at the heart of the democratic process Biden is rebuilding the America that transformed a less developed agricultural nation into a modern industrial economy. ...

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Changing perceptions of European companies about the viability of U.S. manufacturing in 2012-2014. The views of Atlas Copco AB, and Skanska, two Swedish companies, on why it makes sense to make products in the U.S.

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India European Union Trade Deal - huge potential for EU and India for 2 billion people size markets, new manufacturing hubs, and advanced scientific + technological cooperation. Timing is critical. From the first term of DJT 2016-2020 it became clear that the supply chain concentration in China was a serious error for America and Europe. Modi came into manage the federal government in India in 2014- that first phase was to tackle the basic problems in health care sanitation and road infrastructure, agriculture. By the second term of DJT Europe had realized something had to be done to reduce concentration of trade  supply chains in China. Two things had to happen to bring India and EU together. The Ukraine War and China's indirect participation on the side of Russia, the change in administration from Merkel to SPD's Schulz,  and in 2026 to Merz and the CDU created a new awareness of the need for EU and India to come together. Yet Scholz SPD hung onto the special trade relationship even in the face of the Ukraine war and China's shift when it allowed the port of Hamburg stake taken by China to be retained. Something had to happen to jerk Germany and with it the EU out of its inability to shift towards India. Merz took this step in 2026 as the relationship with China soured over Ukraine war and the grasp of the dangers of overconcentration of the China relationship with Germany that Merkel had created. On the other side Modi had to get India's logistics, road and rail networks, ports ready for such a trade relationship where goods could be quickly shipped into and out of India. Modi worked on these investments on a rapid basis in his second and third terms. India had to offer stability in the relationship. This meant winning elections to set up state governments in key states such as Maharashtra for Bombay (Mumbai) region, Delhi capital region, and Bihar/ Orissa (Patna region northeast), Rajasthan (Jaipur northwest region), local city governments in Bombay (Mumbai) region and in the south in Andhra (Vizag region) + Trivandrum (Kerala). The combination of federal and state and city governments working in unison plus logistics and transportation, put India in contention for the role of a size and magnitude that would make a difference for Europe in its relations with China and Russia. That necessity was now fulfilled and in place. Merz and Modi, seized the chance at the kite festival in Gujarat's Ahmedabad, with a vist to the Sabarmati Ashram of modern India's founder Mohandas Gandhiji. Von Der Leyen also from CDU now joins the former premier of Portugal Antonio de Costa as heads of EU to attend the Republic Day parade celebrations in New Delhi on January 26. Nothing happened by chance. It took the hard work that in Robert Frost's words in Mowing ( "the fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows my long scythe whispered, for the earnest love that laid the swale in rows"). Japan plunged headlong into imperial ambitions after its modernization, China has ambitions under its Communist/ Markets system, India as the homeland of the Buddha and the Buddhist civilization of China, Japan and Indochina, and with its special place for Mohandas Gandhiji brings the European civilization in connection with a civilization that is just as old and advanced as the European in its philosophical and religious foundations with practice in real life, and not likely to flounder on the rocks as the Japanese and Chinese expansionist ambition based ideas. And once again with Robert Frost in- Putting in the Seed in Springtime, for Merz, Leyen, Da Costa, and for Gandhi and Modi - "On through the watching for that early birth when just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs."     ...

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This report in WSJ looks at the impact of the 2018 Trump tariffs retained by president Biden as the US seeks to reduce its overdependence on Chinese imports and bring back American manufacturing. This followed misguided policies of previous administrations since Clinton that weakened American manufacturing strengths. Have the US tariffs on Chinese goods worked? The WSJ graph with information from US Census Bureau shows that imports from China in 2022 going down to the levels in 2007 of about 16-17% as a share of US imports, down from a high of 21% before the Trump tariffs halted a rapidly rising curve. Imports from Germany, South Korea and Japan in 2022 were down slightly hovering around 4.5%. Imports increased from Canada and Mexico, the US's traditional partners in North America, around 13.5% as a share of US imports for each country. Also increasing were imports from Vietnam. Some of the imports from Vietnam are Chinese products shipped through Vietnam to evade tariffs, and it is not clear whether the figures from Vietnam have been adjusted for this. President Biden is looking at different scenarios in an effort to tackle inflation. One supported by Janet Yellen, an economist at US Treasury is for the US to relax some of the China tariffs. Most economists in previous administrations including Yellen failed to understand what surrendering American manufacturing to China on the scale and speed that happened would do to communities across America that depended on factory jobs. The devastation of these communities has led to increased divisions in America, weakened American manufacturing, and led to outflow of technologies vital for national security and national well being.  Republican senators, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are opposed to any relaxation of tariffs. Studies show the removal of the tariffs would have only a small impact on the consumer price inflation index reducing inflation by 0.26%. Lifting some tariffs on school supplies and summer bicycles as proposed by the US Chamber of Commerce would have little or no impact on the consumer price index for inflation. This is because the inflation is triggered by oil and gas price increases stemming from the Russian policies and invasion of Ukraine. This has also aggravated food and grocery costs  through blocking of agricultural imports from Ukraine. An additional factor was the increased demand after the pandemic easing in 2022, but that demand is already easing in July with glut in inventories at Walmart and Target, and excess warehouse capacity at Amazon. It would also send the wrong signal to China that the tariffs imposed by president Trump after a Section 301 trade investigation and based on improper loss of technologies to China are not being taken seriously by the US, says Republican Senator Hagerty of Tennessee. The Labor advisory committee to the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai also opposes any such move after the serious damage done to US workers and to US national well being and security. This happened under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations with failed trade policies that ceded manufacturing to China. ...

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Trade in services is not enough. Services won't build ships for the US Navy. Services don't provide jobs for factory workers. Trade in services won't rebuild the US manufacturing base. It won't rebuild the middle class. Trade in services won't make pharmaceuticals Made in America that are available always, including in times of war, pandemics and disruptions. Bottom line as DJT pointed out in a Cabinet meeting on April 10 is that the US could no longer be a world power without its industrial base, it's manufacturing base. Americans companies doing the outshoring are really the targets of the Tariffs because they are at the heart of the mechanisms causing the destruction of the industrial and manufacturing base of America, vital for it's security and for it's leadership of the free world and western civilization. It started with Apple in 1998 and I witnessed this as a consultant seeing the production line at the Apple Colorado Springs plant in 1997 with rework and defective product before Steve Jobs returned to Apple. By 1998 Apple started shipping it's entire production base to China. DJT told the Cabinet meeting on April 10, 2025, all previous presidents had to tell companies firing all their workers and outshoring their machines was- "there will be a tariff of 50 or 100% on your products imported into the US."  And these companies would never have fired all their workers and sent their factories to China or some other country. Economists and experts who have turned their backs on American workers see the $1 trillion deficit countries have with China and the loss of their industrial and manufcturing base with one excuse or another. Trade in Services in which the USA has an advantage does not do much for American workers, or for the 5 million manufacturing jobs lost and tens of thousands of factories that have been outshored.  National Security and Jobs, the Middle Class, factory communities across all 51 states are all at stake. ...

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The union vote will be critical in this election in states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Mr. Trump has worked hard to bring manufacturing in the U.S. back to the days after World War II when the U.S. was the dominant nation in manufacturing.  This report says the fight to improve the prospects of workers in manufacturing in midwestern and northeastern states could determine the election in 2020. It looks at the situation in Pennsylvania.