Comment by myrmidon

Completely agree with your main point.

I do disagree somewhat with point 4. I think this is frequently overstated:

Building and operating automated factories is just as wage-dependent as anything else (just the coefficients are a bit smaller). You still need engineers, construction crews, supervisors, repair crews, etc. (and those could all be doing something more profitable as well).

You can see this very clearly in the EU, where there is a pretty smooth wage-gradient, and even the super highly automated automotive manufacturing has moved down that gradient towards Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, despite language/culture barriers.

> Bringing back a big chunk of manufacturing is sustainable; bringing back jobs is not.

I think a decent sized manufacturing industry is a realistic goal long term. But longer term US global supremacy in it is not even a realistic goal to begin with, because not only are you gonna fight against the wage gradient now, you are also gonna face the fact that the US is only ~5% global population, and manufacturing will naturally drift towards the very biggest markets for its goods, which the US probably won't be in half a century or so, simply because of demographics and economical growth in China/India generally.