Here's an interesting take that I think most overlook.
Because manufacturing overseas got cheap, it opened up OPPORTUNITY for stateside men and women to create their own business that employ people. A good example is my business. I make/sell cocktail mixers, wearable goods, and vacation goods. I was able to build this business because I could get products manufactured at a lower barrier to entry, and subsequently grow the business and HIRE people. If I had to solely source from the US, I would have never started the business and never hired people. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of business like mine that employee MILLIONS of people across the US that would not exist if they couldn't source from overseas.
Now I've been trying really hard to get goods produced in the US, but for our margins and pricepoints it's simply not possible. My ingredients come from Mexico, fabrics from China, Portugal, and Vietnam. But we do our best to assemble/print/finish/package everything here in California.
With these new import taxes it could effectively end businesses like mine. Will it bring manufacturing back to the US? Maybe in the long run, but at the cost of killing hundreds of thousands of business that employee american citizens in the meantime. What we lost in manufacturing in the US, we supplemented with marketing, design, tech, order fulfillment, customer service, etc etc. Will it offset longterm? Maybe. But I hope it wont kill us in the meantime.
Best case scenario is other countries lower their tariffs because of this show of hand, we drop our increases, our exports go up building our GDP, and both sides of the argument are happy.
