This. I can't understand why people don't see it. Of course we can't rebuild what China does overnight. But we can create new supply chains at a lower quality point and then climb back to our original level. I've seen it happening all over the world.
I never believed that Trump's main goal is to bring everything back to the US. Instead, the government wants a new blend of suppliers that leans more heavily on the US but diversifies inputs to many countries.
This is a worthwhile goal even if China was an US ally. We don't want all eggs in one basket.
Building up from lower quality to higher quality works when you have cheap labour force due to cheap cost of living and lower regulation so you can take at least some liberties.
USA has neither, apart from maybe slave labour pool they have collected. So they would also need to compete in global markets with those countries also trying to climb up.
I never believed that Trump's main goal is to bring everything back to the US. Instead, the government wants a new blend of suppliers that leans more heavily on the US but diversifies inputs to many countries.
This is a worthwhile goal even if China was an US ally. We don't want all eggs in one basket.