Exactly what I said in my first post:
Now, this was all our choice (our government) in making policy to allow this trade. What it means to me as someone in the textile industry is that the apparel manufactures left (sewing is labor intensive), then the fabric producers left, then the yarn producers left. I have seen hundreds of mills close down from LA to Miami to Maine and everywhere in between.
Right now the military is most likely the largest customer of our manufacturing. But what if peace happens or spending is cut?
What these numbers don't reveal is the supporting industries that these jobs sustained, the food industry, repair people, health insurance, taxes to the government, office supplies, and on and on and on. Just as there are many industries that support horse racing behind the scenes, the same goes for manufacturing.
What troubles me is we basically gave away these industies to many counties that have cival rights issues, no pollution policy, and a history of treating workers unfairly and they don't like us. (No, I'm not talking about Canada). Did you know that Viet Nam is the new place to go...why? Because their labor rates are lower than China. China's middle class is replacing our middle class. It's easy to see.
We need to rework these trade policies to bring manufacturing back. Maybe not all, but a great deal of what we have given away. The power of he retail giants (Walmart, etc.) has tremendous political clout. As manufactures have been fragmented, they have had little say.
All this has happened because our government has allowed it & encourage it. The big box lobby had helped greatly everytime new trade policies are introduced and discussed.
Further to your point, Walmart now demands containers sent directly to them from China organized by store & products, and if you are one of the last manufactures to make something in the US, Walmart will tell you that the supplier needs to ship FOB China to be in the right container, which forces people who want to make stuff here to have to move to China.
The currency problem along with subsides are a result of the US Government policy and China taking every advantage of us.
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