Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way)

by Rachel Slade

By 2018, the U.S.’s annual trade deficit to China was $419 billion. It’s critical to recognize that what happened to American manufacturing over the past two decades was not the organic by-product of free market policy. The Chinese government, in particular, eager to get a foothold in the lucrative American market, subsidized every step of the way so that its producers could sell their exports for less than they cost to make, a process called “dumping.” Foreign goods were cheaply transported to the U.S. on government-subsidized ships that sailed from government-subsidized ports. That China ruthlessly flaunts international rules to dominate global manufacturing is now common knowledge. In November 2022, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released a report encouraging American policymakers to revive Depression-era tariffs to save domestic industry from “China’s unfair trade practices.”