[palmotea]

But the fact that a company can manufacture consumer(ish) routers in Latvia means it's very practical that another company could manufacture consumer routers in the US.

Usually the argument is that X can't be made in the US because China's so good at it that the US could never compete, so we shouldn't even try. But if a company with 367 employees in a country with the population of a medium-size metro area can do it, it proves that argument is bunk.

[lmm]

> But the fact that a company can manufacture consumer(ish) routers in Latvia means it's very practical that another company could manufacture consumer routers in the US.

Assembling them in Latvia, or the US, from internationally sourced components isn't a solution to anything.

> Usually the argument is that X can't be made in the US because China's so good at it that the US could never compete, so we shouldn't even try. But if a company with 367 employees in a country with the population of a medium-size metro area can do it, it proves that argument is bunk.

Unless Latvia is a much better environment for this kind of industry than the US is.

[palmotea]

> Assembling them in Latvia, or the US, from internationally sourced components isn't a solution to anything.

I disagree. It's the first step. I mean, how did China do it? They started with assembly and low-value manufacturing and worked their way up the value chain. The US still had fabs. Once you get assembly reshored, start pushing to to reshore components (which are mostly chips, and pretty soon the equipment is mostly domestic.

> Unless Latvia is a much better environment for this kind of industry than the US is.

In what way?

Even if the US is utterly terrible for this kind of industry, we're talking about a small-medium sized tech company. It seems extremely doable.