Trump and his billionaire toadies like Howard Lutnik and Scott Bessent are peddling a dangerous lie to working-class Americans. They’re strutting around claiming their tariffs will bring back “good paying jobs” with “great benefits,” while actively undermining the very thing that made manufacturing jobs valuable to working people in the first place: unions.
Let’s be crystal clear about what’s really happening: Without strong unions, bringing manufacturing back to America will simply create more sweatshop opportunities where desperate workers earn between $7.25 and $15 an hour with zero benefits and zero security.
The sole reason manufacturing positions similar to those held by my father at a tool-and-die workshop during the 1960s offered sufficient wages to elevate a household supported solely by one income into the middle class was due to the presence of unions—specifically, the Machinists’ Union in his instance—that tirelessly advocated for workers’ rights and respect.
My father’s union job meant we owned a modest home, had reliable healthcare, and could attend college without crushing debt. The manufacturing jobs Trump promises? Starvation wages without healthcare while corporate profits soar and executives buy their third megayacht.
Evidence of their deceit can be seen through their deeds: They’re transforming the Labor Department into a tool aimed at suppressing workers’ rights and preventing future unionization across America.
Joe Biden was also working to revive American manufacturing — with actual success — but he made it absolutely clear that companies benefiting from his Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act should welcome unions in exchange for government support.
Trump and his GOP enablers want the opposite: docile workers grateful for poverty wages.
While Republicans babble endlessly about “job creators,” they fundamentally misunderstand — or deliberately obscure — how a nation’s true wealth is actually generated.
It doesn’t happen through Wall Street speculation or tax breaks for billionaires. Instead, it occurs through producing valuable goods—precisely what their donor class has enthusiastically outsourced abroad for years while keeping the profits.
There is a significant economic rationale for relocating manufacturing closer to home, as explained by Adam Smith in 1776 and further developed by Alexander Hamilton in 1791 when he outlined his plan to transform America into a leading manufacturer. This core concept forms the basis of Smith’s work “The Wealth of Nations,” which I delve into thoroughly.
The Concealed Legacy of Neoliberalism: How Reagan’s Policies Devastated America
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A branch resting on the ground within a forest holds no economic worth. However, once someone shapes it into an axe handle through carving, it becomes valuable. This “additional value” comes from using human effort (or machinery) on basic resources to create something worthwhile. Such creation contributes to the overall wealth of a country, sometimes persisting for many generations if the item remains functional. For instance, axes crafted in the 1600s continue to be traded in America today; manufacturing thus generates prosperity capable of enduring across multiple lifetimes.
In essence, manufacturing is the sole genuine method through which a nation can grow richer. This explains how China evolved from an impoverished state that I saw during my personal experience living and studying there in 1986 into the formidable economic force it represents now. Similarly, this was behind the rise of Japan and South Korea as major industrial powers following their recovery from wartime destruction over just a few decades.
It’s important to note that this isn’t typically accurate for a service-based economy—the kind of economic model Reagan and Clinton suggested would provide “clean jobs” as the US moved away from manufacturing between the 1980s and 2000s.
If I give you a $50 haircut and you give me a $50 massage — a service economy — we’ve merely shuffled money around while the nation’s overall wealth remains unchanged. But build a factory producing solar panels, and you’ve created something from raw materials that generates power for decades: that’s real wealth that didn’t exist before.
Republicans once grasped this fundamental economic concept until they abandoned their principles for financial support from Wall Street traders and overseas leaders who provide them with investments.
Economies focused solely on services do not create new wealth; they merely redistribute existing funds. This basic fact serves as the most compelling case for revitalizing America’s manufacturing sector, but it is an issue seldom addressed by economists and political pundits. Trump clearly does not understand—or chooses to ignore—this point as he promotes Made-in-China ‘MAGA’ caps while claiming to support American laborers.
It’s incredibly hypocritical. We’re talking about the same Donald Trump who had his branded apparel produced in countries like China, Mexico, and Bangladesh. It’s also the same Republican Party that has long advocated for “free trade” agreements which decimated many American industrial towns. Suddenly, they’ve become experts on tariffs? Really?
Absolutely, we should implement well-crafted tariffs and other trade strategies to encourage domestic manufacturing. Let Congress discuss and enact these initiatives with phased implementation lasting between three to ten years, allowing producers to adjust smoothly towards American-based operations without the unpredictability caused by abrupt shifts like those seen under Trump, who seems prone to altering his stance whenever a foreign leader offers additional incentives.
However, do not be deceived even momentarily: the Republican Party’s strategy to revive U.S. manufacturing while simultaneously attacking labor unions is merely a calculated move to form a workforce of vulnerable, poorly paid employees who lack the ability to advocate for adequate compensation.
It’s not about “Making America Great Again” – it’s about transforming America into precisely what their corporate sponsors have long desired: a passive labor force without a voice, lacking protection, and with limited alternatives.
We require both manufacturing and union support. Anything short of this is merely another deception from the party that has mastered the technique of persuading working-class Americans to vote against their own financial well-being.
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