| >> "The US will be forced to pay more for everything" > I'm assuming your assumption is because China is taking over all of the resources/production capabilities around the world? No, it's because the US government is forcing US consumers (and producers) to pay more for the goods than buyers in other countries will -- that's what a tariff is. > You would be surprised at how much reshoring and US factories automation have occurred in the last few years in US. Indeed I would be surprised and until recently I bought a lot of manufactured goods. OK, I may have overdone it on the beryllium bearing example: I did see a piece of fancy firefighting equipment being built in the Central Valley for shipment to a customer in NZ. But it was exotic enough that it wasn't worth figuring out how to make in NZ, while the volume was so low (they made 3-4 of them a year, at $100K/pop) that it couldn't keep the lights on. Most of what they made was farm gear and solar mounts for sale in the valley. Another example: I bought some pressure vessels (about $60K each FOB Redwood City) made in LA: about half a dozen guys, a massive steel roller press and some excellent union welders. I could get them for much less from India, with about 50 guys feeding 2" sheet steel manually into a tiny roller press, excellent welding, also x-rayed and to the same safety standard. After shipping? About $65K. But that same factory in Amedebad is shipping tons of stuff to the oilfields of Central Asia and the Middle East -- they didn't really care if they got our businesses. While the factory in Los Angeles couldn't keep busy. So that's the low end: "not worth shipping". While $150K of high pressure steam boiler had parts falling off it in shipment from Chicago. It would have been cheaper for us to buy from Germany and have it shipped over just in terms of TCO. So yes I'm pretty familiar, as a customer, of US heavy industry. |