Let me say from the outset: no one is saying that there is a magic bullet solution that will bring 100% of manufacturing jobs to the us and destroy the world economy.  In America our labor force is used to a higher standard of living than most in the world.  That means that competing with international manufacturers is difficult to start with.  If an American company is going to have a CHANCE of making things here then we have to at least have an even playing field on the rules conditions and tax treatment of that business with other countries.  Right now there is not only a higher cost associated with labor, but cost of compliance with regulation, tax burden, repatriation of offshore profits etc.  

 

To put it simply, if we are going to pay our workers as well as we should, then our regulatory policy and tax policy should be designed to make products as inexpensive to build as possible.  It's asinine to have high wages draconian taxes and regulations and expect companies to come pouring in.  

 

It also doesn't make sense to give countries that institute protectionist policies against our exports full unfettered access to the most desired consumer market in the world.  

 

In the case of China my point is that right now the structure of the current arrangement is mostly irrelevant.  They are notorious currency manipulators, they have make it very hard for us exporters to have access to their markets, they have several tariff walls across different sectors of their economy, and their domestic producers are heavily subsidized.  That says nothing of stolen intellectual property and cyber attacks.  

 

We have to develop a strategy to curtail trade practices that are not in good faith and make sure that we don't allow our domestic workers to get ripped off.  Specifically Donald Trump has advocated Lowering taxes, simplifying the tax code, freezing the regulatory structure to provide certainty, and most importantly greatly reducing the taxes that we charge companies to bring foreign profits back home (38.8%).  Right now if a company makes a billion dollars in france and wants to bring some of that money back home to build a factory or do R&D they can't!  The last time there was a significant decrease in the repatriation rate the economy saw something like a 360 billion dollar influx of money that the Treasury didn't have to PRINT!!!

 

Free trade is a good thing.  It increases options for consumers globally and lower costs globally.  There is a difference between free trade and allowing your entire country to get ripped off.  

 

We have 95 Million people out of the labor force in this country, nearly 50 million on food stamps and we are absorbing millions and millions more into paid medicaid coverage through medicaid expansion.  We can't continue to absorb millions of undocumented workers to put further strain on the social safety net and compete for unskilled labor.  

 

In some respects licensing for certain sectors of the economy is an impediment.  The solution is to make sure that licensing is common sense and decrease the administrative burdens put on businesses so that DOMESTIC workers and budding entrepreneurs have the ability for professional advancement and we need to redesign the over bloated education system that we already pay for to make that the goal.  There's no need to have even more people competing for jobs and professions that can be filled by a labor force that is already largely out of work.  

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