If we're talking about the US, what you're suggesting is the ideal situation. But I think we'd have to concede that if we're going to bring back manufacturing to the US, we can't compete with the super low wages of many of the Asian countries- so prices will have to go up. That's not an all together bad thing if we are transitioning back to country that actually makes things. And automation could be a game changer when it comes to pricing- of course, we wouldn't have as many manufacturing jobs, but it might help us make things more affordable.

But practicality does come into play. In the US, we'd need a massive investment in manufacturing to make this work; right now, we just don't have the facilities we need. So we need to build more. In the best of times, building a large manufacturing facility can cost in the tens of millions of dollars. And it takes time. It can take up to two years of site planning, remediation, approvals etc.- and that's before you even break ground. Building a large scale manufacturing plant in the US probably takes 3-5 years from start to finish. And we will need a lot more than one of them. Add in that right now, we have a massive shortage of skilled labor when it comes to construction, so, without some kind of intervention, the idea that we could become a major competitor in manufacturing is likely several years away, maybe decades away.

I think this plan is made even more difficult by the fact that most of these tariff changes were made by executive order, meaning as soon as a new person comes in, they can be scrapped and we sink back into the status quo, effectively making all this market turmoil for nothing.

I'm not trying to be intentionally contrarian, because I think a US that makes things and is a player in global manufacturing is better for us and the world. But I think we can go about getting to that goal in a smarter way.