[forinti]

I don't understand why the US doesn't try to make Central America at least moderately well-off instead of building a wall.

Here is another chance: put some of the manufacturing in Central America where costs are much lower and there's not much of a distance to market.

[bpicolo]

Because the materials that go into production are located in Asia. It's the second, third, fourth order dependencies that are challenging.

Relocating would mean both building up entire verticals from raw material and all stages of processing, but also everything adjacent - labor force with expertise, transportation and distribution, etc. This is happening in various parts of the world for various industries, but it's slow and capital intensive.

[wing-_-nuts]

>I don't understand why the US doesn't try to make Central America at least moderately well-off instead of building a wall.

Boy wait till you hear about this new thing called 'NAFTA'. Hey, we gutted our manufacturing sector but those folks in northern mexico sure are happy.

I'm not anti freetrade, but we absolutely destroyed good jobs open to people without a degree, and then had ivory tower economists tell us it was for our own good. It's not hard to understand why such areas would support a horrible person for president if he acted like he was on their side.

[cromka]

This is the strategy of current administration, see this from yesterday: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

[keyboardCowBoy]

Because it's cheaper and easier to build a wall. We can not continue to take in the rest of the world virtually unvetted. Does anyone remember there is a pandemic, housing crunch, and rampant inflation occurring in the US. We should focus on our country at the moment.