Comment by anon7000

This article was a really interesting take on this too: https://semianalysis.com/2025/03/11/america-is-missing-the-n...

The tldr of that post is: - To be really good at making robots, you need to iterate fast

- To iterate fast, you need all component manufacturers nearby (or you’ll be wasting weeks shipping parts from somewhere else)

- To be really competitive at manufacturing, you need to be good at robotics.

- If you’re missing all of these pieces, it will be hard to catch up with (say) China, which has been exponentially growing in every possible aspect of manufacturing for decades. Not only do we not have strong manufacturing, but we don’t have strong robotics companies, don’t have many of our own robotics components companies, and don’t even have much in terms of raw materials. Whereas China has been investing heavily in every single one of these areas.

Bringing manufacturing back means investing in all aspects of the supply chains which lead to technical innovation in manufacturing, which is really hard to do when the supply chain is set up to pull from our current competitor.