In 2011, Obama, who was still young, was serving as the president of the United States. He keenly discovered the problem of hollowing out the United States industry, so he deliberately communicated with Jobs, the CEO of Apple, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer at the time, to discuss how to return manufacturing work to the United States?

Jobs said a pun: Mr. President, those jobs aren't coming back)!

Jobs means that these manufacturing jobs will never return to the United States again.

The result was that in August 2011, Jobs resigned from Apple's CEO position due to illness. On October 5, 2011, Jobs died of pancreatic cancer, and he would indeed never come back.

In 2012, Obama, who had successfully run for re-election, once again called on Apple to set an example for other American companies and bring manufacturing work back to the United States. As a mission, the new Apple CEO Cook responded to Obama's call and decided to invest $1 billion in the Austin Industrial Park, Texas, to build a new Mac Pro production line to increase employment opportunities and GDP in the United States, reflecting the return of manufacturing to the United States.

The picture below is an internal photo of Apple's Austin factory, which is also the first time Apple's Mac Pro has been produced in the United States.

However, Cook soon regretted it. First of all, the salary of recruiting workers in the United States is more than 10 times that of a strike, but Cook gritted his teeth and accepted it.

Next, we will find OEM companies. The United States is not like that. There are a lot of active small and medium-sized enterprises willing to produce OEMs for others. Cook finally found Flextronic, a famous American semiconductor manufacturer, and agreed toApple does OEM, but then Flextronics is in trouble because of a few small screws, because there are 13 specially customized screws in a Mac computer.

If it is in , it is not a matter at all. Because there are tens of thousands of companies and companies that produce screws, they can produce all screws from space shuttles to tables, chairs and benches. Just one phone call, and any custom screws can be delivered to a large cart immediately.

After Flexibility and Apple were searching hard, Caldwell, a Texas company specializing in the production of air conditioning accessories, joined the Apple supply chain and promised to provide customized screws specifically for Flexibility - but it is incredible that the company could not find the truck driver who was willing to transport these customized screws.

There is no choice. The CEO of Caldwell personally drove a luxury car to deliver goods to Flextronics. In half a year, he delivered 22 delivery times and delivered 28,000 screws.

Caldwell Company is also speechless. Wouldn't you just import these customized screws directly from? Isn't it much cheaper than letting me deliver goods to you in a luxury car? What are you trying to do?

But it just doesn't work, because this is the president's project, and the whole process is It must be made in the United States, how can I use screws?

In this way, Apple's factory in Austin did produce Mac Pro, but the cost far exceeds Apple's sales price in the global market...

Someone has calculated that even with the assistance of the industry chain of allies, if they want to make iPhones in the United States, the cost of each phone would soar to $3,500.

Imagine how competitive the $3,500 iPhone could be in the world?

But Obama was very satisfied. He regarded the Apple factory in Austin as his achievements in bringing manufacturing job opportunities back to the United States and promoted it everywhere.

A Apple phone has 22 customized screws, which is calculated based on the annual sales of 60 million units, and a total of 1.32 billion screws are consumed. According to the current production capacity of the United States, it will take about 13,600 years to complete. Furthermore, with many accessories such as shells, batteries, cameras, buttons, etc., if all the mobile phones are produced in the United States, it will take 100,000 years to manufacture 60 million mobile phones.

In contrast, Apple at that time had 18 OEM factories around the world, of which 15 were , each OEM needs hundreds of upstream and downstream supporting enterprises, and at most nearly ten thousand. If one of them is lost, there will be replacement companies immediately. But in the United States, there are problems with OEM companies and workers. Cook visited the Austin factory and found that many workstations were just a worker standing at a loss, with extremely low production efficiency. And this is not because the degree of automation does not require workers, but the United States lacks qualified engineers, so workers can only be recruited to watch the machines work...

This is the situation in the manufacturing industry in the United States at that time.

left;">From 2011 to 2025, from Obama to Trump and Biden, every session of the United States advocates the return of manufacturing and revitalizing manufacturing, but the data from the OECD is quite touching:

The total output value of the US manufacturing industry accounts for 19.4% of the global output value in 2010Declined to 12% in 2023;

The total global output value of manufacturing increased from 19.8% in 2010 to 35% in 2023.

"Jobs" will never come back.

Unlike a narcissist like Trump, who has completely mastered the essence of winning studies and always knows how to brag about himself shamelessly. After Obama stepped down, he really seriously investigated the opening of a manufacturing company in the United States, and also made a documentary to compare the differences with the manufacturing industry in the United States.

This is the documentary "American Factory" that was popular in the United States in 2019.

The documentary "American Factory" mainly tells the story of entrepreneurs Cao Dewang and Qi Fuyao Glass who took over an abandoned General Motors factory in Dayton, Ohio, USA, and employed thousands of blue-collar American employees. After experiencing a series of collisions and frictions, they finally got on the right track. Dayton in the story was once a general automobile factory in the United States. It was prosperous because of the automobile manufacturing industry, but it was declining at that time. Fuyao's arrival was conceived as being able to promote local recovery and employment, but it caused countless conflicts, which shows how difficult it is to restore the American manufacturing industry... From then on to now, another five years have passed. After experiencing the epidemic crisis, the manufacturing industry has become stronger and stronger, while the hollowing out of the United States has become more and more serious. According to the latest data released by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), in 2023: In terms of global manufacturing output, it accounts for 35%, the United States accounts for 12%, >US + Japan + Germany + India + South Korea + Italy + France; In terms of global manufacturing added value, it accounts for 30%, and the United States accounts for 16%, ≈US + Japan + Germany + South Korea.

In the 2024 presidential election, whether it is the Republican Party orThe Democratic Party is all confident that if it is elected, it can bring manufacturing back to the United States.

However, any American who can think deeply and have a clear judgment is very clear that "making American manufacturing industry great again" is the Impossible Mission. All those homes who shouted the return of manufacturing and the United States would enter the golden age are fooling the people.

Why?

Because the manufacturing industry imagined by Americans is nothing different from the manufacturing industry today. Before and after World War II, the manufacturing industry in the United States was that people took subways or buses in groups, or drove cars to work nearby. The workers were talking and laughing, working together, and working 8 hours of work, and then they went home to study and play with their wives and children. They raised one wife, four children and two dogs by themselves, and could buy a house (equivalent to a villa) after three years of income... This is the American manufacturing industry imagined by the rednecks and MAGA people in the United States.

But in fact, what is the real manufacturing industry in today's world like?

is a female worker in a textile factory in Bangladesh. She sweats heavily and works 12 hours a day in a stuffy, humid and dirty environment. Then, she works for a month in a row, and her income is only 1/5 of the unemployed person's subsidy for the United States who is completely lying flat and not doing anything;

is a young man from Foxconn. He is nervous on the assembly line and engages in mechanical repetitive work for 12 hours, working in two shifts or three shifts. In this way, his income can only barely keep up with the subsidy for the unemployed person in the United States;

is a Taiwanese engineer at TSMC. He works for two shifts and works 12 hours a day. He is nervously watching the yield in wafer production, adjusting process parameters such as etching, lithography, and deposition at any time. He also has to stand by 24 hours a year to prepare for testing the chip life and performance. His income is only 1/3-1/4 of the income of dock workers in the United States who almost do not require special skills;

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Don't say that Americans compete with manufacturing workers in Vietnam on the Foxconn assembly line, even companies like TSMC,Even the United States cannot be opened (TSMC's factory in the United States has been built for several years and has not been completed. It is said that after completion, it can only allow Taiwanese engineers to move there). Even super-high profit chip companies like Intel are about to go bankrupt in the United States. How can you revive the manufacturing industry?

Everyone is lazy and hates work. As long as you can have a meal, you won’t starve to death. No one thinks that you will be a worker on the assembly line. No matter in history or at present, when its annual per capita income exceeds 90% of the world’s population, the manufacturing industry will never come back, because people would rather lie down and eat benefits than enter assembly line factories.

U.S. manufacturing will only come back unless the current American income is reduced to the level of Vietnamese and Bangladeshis!

The problem is that compared with any other major in the world, Americans have "far ahead" in their per capita income. Do you want people to go to factories to make screws? What are you thinking!

400 years ago, before the Spaniards became the world overlord, their handmade manufacturing industry was well-known in Western Europe, but as the elites got used to robbing gold and silver from the Americas, ordinary Spanish also drank soup, didn't they think about reviving Spain's handmade manufacturing industry? Why can't we revive it? Because their income is too high!

300 years ago, because of freedom of belief in the city-state, the Dutch's handmade manufacturing and trade freedom were the best in Europe, but when the Dutch spread across the ocean in front of the sea coachman and the East India company plundered wealth all over the world, and those who gave the rich servants far higher income than handicrafts, did they not think about reviving the Dutch handmade manufacturing industry? Why can't we revive it? Because their income is too high!

Twenty years ago, the British wool textile industry was famous in Europe, and the famous "sheep eaters" movement came out, but then Britain became the world overlord. When they were used to lending interest from all over the world to make quick money, didn't they think about reviving the British manufacturing industry? Why can't we revive it? Because their income is too high!

100 years ago, American manufacturing ranked first in the world, almost equaling the sum of other industries, but in the past 70 yearsDuring time, Americans are the world hegemons, and they are used to making a lot of money with the US dollar, high technology, and Wall Street financial means. High-tech elites and financial elites eat meat. Most ordinary people in the United States have also drunk these hegemonic dividend paste soup, which is fresh and beautiful. At this time, MAGAs are thinking about reviving the American manufacturing industry. Can it be possible?

To put it bluntly, it is impossible for the return of American manufacturing to return until American incomes have dropped significantly.

You must know that because of the happy education implemented in the past few decades, there have been at least 50 million "functional illiterate" in the United States - even though they can read literacy, they lack the ability to use these abilities to handle certain daily life affairs, such as reading newspapers, looking up dictionaries, filling in manuals...

These people are the main group of the MAGA movement. They don’t have any skills, but they want to live the best life. They are indeed thinking about making the United States great again and reviving the manufacturing industry. However, when they find a job, they can earn $60,000-80,000 per year, they are all thinking about letting other Americans enter factories. They are suffering and earn only $20,000 a year, and work hard to realize their MAGA dream...

In order to cater to the ideas of these people, Trump proposed the so-called MAGA strategy. To put it bluntly, he is promising that I will lead the United States to "grab" themHe is wealth, blackmailing others... So, when Trump announced on April 2 that he had imposed absurd tariffs on other goods around the world, what he said "it's the turn of the United States to flourish" and what he said "will become the golden age of the United States" was really nonsense.

What he is actually doing is destroying today's global industrial chain - a global industrial chain gradually formed by the blood and sweat of billions of people in the past few decades.

As the world's most powerful president, it is certainly no problem to break an old world, but does Trump really have the ability to build a new world?

He didn't! Since Americans cannot do hard manufacturing and do not want to rely on the industrial chain, there is only one way of thinking:

The small courtyard has high walls, and the friendly shore outsourcing. Yes, if we really start from the long-term interests of the United States, what Trump should do is to repay full trust in his allies, and then join forces with his allies to outsource the industrial chain globally, transfer the high-end manufacturing and automobile industries to Germany, France, etc. in Europe, to ship the hard and tiring shipbuilding industry to Japan and South Korea, outsourcing chip production to Taiwan, to Mexico and Vietnam, and to garment manufacturing industry to Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia... In this way, it can not only achieve slow damage to the "full industrial chain", but also give enough time to reshape the global industrial chain. As time goes by, the United States really has a little possibility to establish a new trading system.

As a result, Trump's tariff turtle punch only started from the idea of ​​solving the US deficit, and suddenly overturned all allies, imposed 34% tariffs, the EU also imposed 20% tariffs, Japan imposed 46% tariffs, South Korea imposed 50% tariffs, and Vietnam simply imposed 90% tariffs...

You must know that the current division of labor in the global industrial chain has been formed step by step for more than 30 years since the end of the Cold War. Trump imposed tariffs on all tariffs at once. This is a thing of the past.The idea of ​​a fool in real production activities is to destroy the industrial chain, not to reshape the industrial chain!

To some extent, this is equivalent to declaring war on the whole world economically!

Trump's tariff stick will only cause the global industrial chain formed by billions of people in the past few decades to bury the manufacturing industry that the United States cannot return! Of course, according to Trump's Treasury Secretary Becent, this is "detoxifying" the US economy.

The problem is that through the ever-expanding trade deficit and sucking the cream and blood of manufacturing all over the world, the United States has been taking it for nearly 70 years. Can Trump’s high tariffs allow Americans to quit?

Have you met several drug users, and they can successfully detoxify after one sentence?

We must know that today's trade globalization and economic globalization were originally promoted by Americans - from the US dollar to the World Trade Organization (WTO), to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), to the Federal Reserve's New York sub-Feder dollar settlement system. The entire world's economic and financial system today was established under the leadership of the United States after World War II. The US promised 35 US dollars to be exchanged for 1 ounce of gold in 1944. In 1971, Nixon announced that "stop exchange" had also broken the contract. The current US dollar is purely "based on credit."

Because it is a rule set by the United States, the United States has naturally enjoyed the greatest benefits of this set of rules in the past 80 years. Especially since the disintegration of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the real production capacity of the United States has actually been deteriorating. However, since then to the present, the living standards of ordinary Americans have always ranked among the highest among the world (calculated by purchasing power evaluation method). Why?

The US dollar is an international currency. In order to develop international trade, countries must use the US dollar as settlement and reserve currency. The deeper the degree of globalization, the larger the scale of global trade, the more dollars other people need to store and deposit. This has caused more and more dollars not to return to the United States to purchase goods and services, and the United States can continue to maintain a trade deficit...

Now, MAGA said that I want to anti-globalization, increase tariffs significantly, do not trade deficits, subvert the global layout of the industrial chain in the past few decades, and let manufacturing return to the United States... Does MAGA mean to give up the international status of the US dollar currency and give up the wealth of US financial hegemony?

Think about it, with a few cents (bank notes) or nearly 0 dollars, you can buy other real goods and services produced by the blood and sweat of the people, and continue to maintain a trade deficit, so that Americans can continue to enjoy higher living standards than other people in the world. How can such huge interests and wealth be abandoned?

On the other hand, I have already discussed in detail before that with such high incomes of Americans, the global manufacturing industry is simply impossible to return to the United States.

left;">As mentioned earlier, even if Americans are asked to make mobile phones, if Americans are allowed to make mobile phones, the iPhone is $3,500 per unit, can Americans afford it? Can other people afford it? How can Americans export mobile phones that Americans cannot afford to use themselves?

This kind of thinking that wants to live the most advanced life easily and does not want to pay any cost constitutes the spectrum of Trump and his MAGA people.

Just 14 years after Obama expected to bring Apple's manufacturing industry back to the United States, on March 18, 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance publicly stated at the "American Dynamism Summit" held by a well-known venture capital company a16z of Silicon Valley, that the original intention of globalization in the United States is to allow developed countries such as the United States to lead high-end research and development and design, andDevelopers (such as) are responsible for low-end manufacturing.

In other words, what Trump and Vance believe in should be a permanent economic hierarchy. The United States is always at the top of the tower, and all manufacturing industries are always at the bottom of the tower. You will always be slaves and cannot have any covetousness of "high-end industries".

Vance also gave an example to say that the current problem of globalization is that developers are "unwilling to" stay at low-end manufacturing, but enter the field of high value-added through independent innovation. He also gave an example of the "California Design, Shenzhen Manufacturing" model of Apple mobile phones, pointing out that, etc., not only undertake manufacturing, but also reversely improve design capabilities...

It is obvious that in the eyes of Trump and his followers, only Americans are human beings. Others in the world are just sweat slaves to support noble Americans!