ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania — Long before the outbreak of the coronavirus, Americans wanted to buy, use, wear, eat, and build with more things made in this country. It was a sentiment that crossed party lines, generations, ethnic backgrounds, and geographical regions.
In late October 2017, a Morning Consult poll showed 67% of adults said they were willing to pay more for products manufactured in America.
It’s a sentiment captured long before the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, when the public became sharply aware of the gaps in our supply chains. The urgent need for surgical masks, pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment, thermometers, ventilators, and thousands of other essential and nonessential items was highlighted by delays or complete unavailability.
As demand and need outpaced our ability to acquire products readily, the pandemic finally forced us to realize the damage of spending generations shrinking our industrial base — giving up industries, jobs, and a supply chain that didn’t just provide jobs or create vibrant, middle-class communities but kept us safe and secure and our supply chain vibrant.
Fast forward to today, and a survey conducted by FTI Consulting this week showed a whopping 78% of Americans now say they were willing to pay more for products if a company had moved out of China.
Last week, when I asked President Trump in this Lehigh Valley city about people being willing to pay more for things that were manufactured in the United States, he said no worries. They won’t have to anymore. One day before he signed a $354 million deal with Phlow Corporation to manufacture essential drugs here in the U.S., Trump said:
When you think about the history of this country, one of the dominant traits we’ve held throughout the centuries is that we held a competitive drive to discover new things to create a better life for ourselves, and then we set about making them. Here in Pennsylvania, our strength wasn’t just in the iron, steel, glass, and coal our ancestors dug and forged to build the infrastructure that connected us from one ocean to the other and protected our soldiers. We also forged our way in research, technology, and medicine.
For the past 50 years, automation, lopsided trade deals, and punishing environmental regulations drove much of what we did with our hands out of our hands and created ghost towns and depressed areas all across this state. That resulted in a disjointed supply chain and significant job losses.
A significant part of Trump’s appeal as a candidate was his blunt talk on our multigenerational failure to make things here. That appeal continued into his presidency in his strident negotiations with China, Mexico, and Canada on trade.
Trump’s brashness and unorthodox dealings also made members of his own party and the Washington political class cringe and recoil to their enclaves. But it made people who are not just good at making things but are proud to do so feel championed — even if the deals weren’t perfect, even if they got shortchanged, even if they didn’t like his style.
The problem with the people who cringed is that they’ve never worked with their hands, known anyone who works with their hands, or known anyone who likes working with their hands. If they did know what that’s like before they moved to the wealthiest counties in the country, they’ve left those memories behind.
Their attitudes lack the depth of understanding of the dignity and pride someone feels when they do make something such as a mask, a ventilator, a part for your car, or the cartons that hold your brown organic, farm-fresh, cage-free eggs that goes from their labor to your front door.
On Tuesday, Trump held a Cabinet meeting to discuss measures to cut red tape so that companies could begin either expanding or starting businesses that will begin making more products here a reality and not just a campaign slogan.
“The pandemic has shown, once again, the vital importance of economic independence and bringing supply chains back from China and other countries. I probably got elected — one of the primary reasons was that. ‘Make America Great Again,’ ‘America First’ — call it whatever you want,” he said.
Trump said that to achieve this goal, he’s slashed red tape and bureaucracy and unleashed the largest industrial mobilization since World War II. “We’re fighting for the livelihoods of American workers, and we must continue to cut through every piece of red tape that stands in our way.”
With that, he signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery.
Unfortunately, not many people heard that story because the press spent the day on Twitter and on cable news focused on the president’s admission the day before that he was, under doctor’s care, taking hydroxychloroquine as a defensive measure.
As the future of the laborers who don’t have the luxury of working from home is decided by the people who do, manufacturing, job creation, and “made in America” products will increasingly decide who wins in November rather than the latest Twitter outrage.
