I truly wonder the same thing. Why are we trying to move back down the value chain?

wait, so we should be producing intellectual property (that China can steal in 5 secs) and.. "content"(?!) while all the industrial production can be done in China? That's  ridiculous

Solving public goods value capture. | /impact | book.abundance.id

Digital trade is Americas strongest export and it’s not even accounted for in trade deficit calculations.

We export bits and bytes and import raw materials and finished products. It’s the best deal out there.

Also - manufacturing capacity in the United States is literally at all time highs. We could certainly manufacture more things, but why would we want to manufacture all the things?

it's the best deal out there until someone cuts off your supply of finished products and you have to defend yourself with bits and bytes against an industrial power.
China's manufacturing capacity is about double that of the US

A country with 3x the population is always going to manufacture more?

We can produce important national security stuff (and we do) without starting a trade war against the entire world?

Also - bits and bytes are the future of warfare. Control the flow of information, you win.

They can manufacture more, but there's no reason why we should outsource our manufacturing capacity to them.

The closer liberal democracies get to parity (in total industrial capacity) with autocratic regimes the more likely we are to end up in WWIII. That's the math I see.

I think it's much easier to match the "bits and bytes" part than industrial capacity, which takes years to rebuild

you don't need to onshore all production to US, only to reverse the trend of US companies building China's industrial capacity. Just like Apple is now doing by moving (some) production from China to India. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/apple-aims-source-all-us-iphones-india-pivot-away-china-ft-reports-2025-04-25/

post-WWII "world peace" is largely underwritten by Pax-Americana - ie. US military superiority. It's not a great system by any means but I'd still prefer this more decentralized system over relying on the benevolence of a centralized and autocratic CCP.. just like I prefer blockchains to banks, even tho arguably banks are more effective than blockchains

I don’t see how having iPhones made in India vs China is really all that different. It just seems like Cold War style fear mongering abut oOoO scary China. When in reality, the world should be scared of the US. We’re the ones constantly affecting regime change and pushing our will off on the globe.

If it doesn’t make economic sense for us to manufacture something, then we move it offshore until it does. It’s never going to make sense for the U.S. to be a manufacturing based economy, not unless you want a severe downgrade in living standards for most everyone. Things would just cost too much money. Our system isn’t designed for it and never will be as long as 1% owns 75% of the wealth.

I’m not sure why there is such fear of China. Compared to “liberal democracies”, it’s for a much better power for world peace. While we blow up half the world and force everyone to play our games; to their own detriment.