Well, long term Americans could be making Nintendo Switches domestically. They’d be more expensive but blue collar workers could be making more money. It’s not entirely dumb as everyone here paints it even if the implementation is laughably bad. Previous term Orange man made TSMC build a cutting-edge fab which by now is operational which is also pretty important for supply chain security in case China invades Taiwan. Europe would be fucked because we didn’t do enough for domestic manufacturing. Of course Orange man can’t make up his mind between using tariffs to forward personal agenda and meddling with internal politics of trading partners of the US but sometimes he gets it right. Toys being slightly more expensive is probably lower than tan spray on his list of priorities.
To be fair TSMC built, then expanded their fab plans due to the Chips Act passed under Biden. Trump called to repeal said act but realizing its bi-partisan support decided instead to “reshape” it via executive order so he can dip his corrupt fingers into it and sell access. Last part there is my addition, but well within his actions on a multitude of other industries. Biden and co understood, targeted tariffs and supply line security needs to be accompanied with domestic subsidy, unlike Trumps ignorant across the board tariff shit, which just serves as another sales tax on US citizens. That being said, it is crazy unrealistic to have a majority US made switch without crazy investment in US manufacturing.
Trump is a moron in general and his narcissistic/hyperactive behaviour is cringe-worthy but fabs don’t get built in a single term. Biden continued many of Trumps policies because they were popular, funding ICE and increasing deportations included.
It’s not viable without upsetting those who benefit from status quo, that’s for sure. Many people don’t seem to be happy with that status quo though. They picked wrong answer to the correct question but they weren’t that far off.
No, it’s not remotely viable because something always has to come from somewhere. The US, or any particular place on Earth, does not have every necessary resource available. Or might only have poor quality/purity resources available.
So even if you were to somehow move every manufacturing pipeline into a single country, that country still relies on getting lithium from other countries where it’s abundant, or magnesium, or titanium, or sulphur, or cobalt, or gold, or platinum, or perhaps even just decent steal.
And since you’re getting those resources from other countries, it’s far more logistically viable to process those resources in the countries where they’re mined.
And since those country are already processing the resources, it’ll also be logistically way better if they can process them into basic components too.
What are the resources required to build electronics that are unavailable in the US? There’s no infrastructure, yeah, but saying a country the size of US is limited in what’s available resource-wise sounds silly.
“Big” does mean “everything is available”. But you are starting to ask the right questions:
What resources are needed to build electronics?
Where does one find these resources in abundance?
If you’re actually interested in learning the answers to these questions, you can find out the average rare earth minerals needed for a CPU or a GPU. You can also find the resource distribution of minerals on Earth, and their expected purities.
You’ll probably also figure out why certain countries make the diplomatic decisions that they do. Take, for example, the mineral deal between Ukraine and the US…
It’s not that rare earth minerals are this rare, it’s that their extraction is extremely bad for the environment so most western countries are happy to make it a brown people problem.
It’s actually just not viable, period. I don’t think you understand just how complicated the logistics are, or how long the process would take even if they were to start relocating right now.
It’s not just about labor. It’s about entire supply chains. It’s not exactly trivial to pack up and move everything. And it’s ultimately good for a global economy to have regions that specialize in specific kinds of manufacturing, it’s not necessary for the US to try and make everything domestic just for the sake of being domestic.
I’m also not sure what you mean by “move on”, do you think manfuacturing is somehow ephemeral?
All you’re saying it’s complex and that it will take time. Americans put a man on the moon, they’re a resourceful bunch. Some got pretty lazy though.
I don’t think people in Asia are different from others and will likely be interested in pivoting their economies to be less dependent on a single thing. China already started so things moved to Vietnam, Indonesia etc. which for now are cheaper. Eventually „the west” is going to run out of places to outsource dirty work to. Colonialism is visibly losing steam, hence the rise of fascism which is just colonialism pointed inwards.
But the shouty man on TV told me tariffs were good? Why vibeo janes cost more?
Well, long term Americans could be making Nintendo Switches domestically. They’d be more expensive but blue collar workers could be making more money. It’s not entirely dumb as everyone here paints it even if the implementation is laughably bad. Previous term Orange man made TSMC build a cutting-edge fab which by now is operational which is also pretty important for supply chain security in case China invades Taiwan. Europe would be fucked because we didn’t do enough for domestic manufacturing. Of course Orange man can’t make up his mind between using tariffs to forward personal agenda and meddling with internal politics of trading partners of the US but sometimes he gets it right. Toys being slightly more expensive is probably lower than tan spray on his list of priorities.
To be fair TSMC built, then expanded their fab plans due to the Chips Act passed under Biden. Trump called to repeal said act but realizing its bi-partisan support decided instead to “reshape” it via executive order so he can dip his corrupt fingers into it and sell access. Last part there is my addition, but well within his actions on a multitude of other industries. Biden and co understood, targeted tariffs and supply line security needs to be accompanied with domestic subsidy, unlike Trumps ignorant across the board tariff shit, which just serves as another sales tax on US citizens. That being said, it is crazy unrealistic to have a majority US made switch without crazy investment in US manufacturing.
Trump is a moron in general and his narcissistic/hyperactive behaviour is cringe-worthy but fabs don’t get built in a single term. Biden continued many of Trumps policies because they were popular, funding ICE and increasing deportations included.
Moving all manufacturing to the US is not even remotely viable.
It’s not viable without upsetting those who benefit from status quo, that’s for sure. Many people don’t seem to be happy with that status quo though. They picked wrong answer to the correct question but they weren’t that far off.
No, it’s not remotely viable because something always has to come from somewhere. The US, or any particular place on Earth, does not have every necessary resource available. Or might only have poor quality/purity resources available.
So even if you were to somehow move every manufacturing pipeline into a single country, that country still relies on getting lithium from other countries where it’s abundant, or magnesium, or titanium, or sulphur, or cobalt, or gold, or platinum, or perhaps even just decent steal.
And since you’re getting those resources from other countries, it’s far more logistically viable to process those resources in the countries where they’re mined.
And since those country are already processing the resources, it’ll also be logistically way better if they can process them into basic components too.
What are the resources required to build electronics that are unavailable in the US? There’s no infrastructure, yeah, but saying a country the size of US is limited in what’s available resource-wise sounds silly.
“Big” does mean “everything is available”. But you are starting to ask the right questions:
What resources are needed to build electronics?
Where does one find these resources in abundance?
If you’re actually interested in learning the answers to these questions, you can find out the average rare earth minerals needed for a CPU or a GPU. You can also find the resource distribution of minerals on Earth, and their expected purities.
You’ll probably also figure out why certain countries make the diplomatic decisions that they do. Take, for example, the mineral deal between Ukraine and the US…
It’s not that rare earth minerals are this rare, it’s that their extraction is extremely bad for the environment so most western countries are happy to make it a brown people problem.
It’s actually just not viable, period. I don’t think you understand just how complicated the logistics are, or how long the process would take even if they were to start relocating right now.
Why? Do you mean the only viable model is to outsource cheap labour to Asia forever? People over there will move on eventually.
It’s not just about labor. It’s about entire supply chains. It’s not exactly trivial to pack up and move everything. And it’s ultimately good for a global economy to have regions that specialize in specific kinds of manufacturing, it’s not necessary for the US to try and make everything domestic just for the sake of being domestic.
I’m also not sure what you mean by “move on”, do you think manfuacturing is somehow ephemeral?
All you’re saying it’s complex and that it will take time. Americans put a man on the moon, they’re a resourceful bunch. Some got pretty lazy though.
I don’t think people in Asia are different from others and will likely be interested in pivoting their economies to be less dependent on a single thing. China already started so things moved to Vietnam, Indonesia etc. which for now are cheaper. Eventually „the west” is going to run out of places to outsource dirty work to. Colonialism is visibly losing steam, hence the rise of fascism which is just colonialism pointed inwards.