James Drogan

"The problem is that at least 80% of manufacturing jobs were lost not to companies moving factories to China or Mexico but to increased automation. Some estimates run as high as 90%. Those jobs are never “coming back.” They are gone. And that trend is going to continue and accelerate. I fully understand that if we do get corporate tax reform, along with some other reforms, it is quite possible that Apple, for example, would move its iPhone 10 factory to the US. But iPhones are increasingly assembled by robots, and in a few years those and other such products will mostly be made on largely automated production lines, whether in China or the US.

That said, if Foxconn does set up a flat-screen display factory in the US, it would create 30,000+ jobs. Of course, they are asking for US government help and subsidies. Note that Apple has 766 suppliers, of which just 69 are in the US. Manufacturing iPhones in the US would be more about the logistics of getting just-in-time components from those other 700 suppliers, which are all over the world. The additional cost for US-based labor would not be all that much.

And that situation is playing out over hundreds of industries. Much of what we buy today is absolutely reliant on a complex, seamlessly functioning global supply chain. Did you know that an Apple iPhone contains about 75 elements, as in periodic table elements? There is iron, aluminum, carbon, and silicon, of course, but also a host of exotics. Most of those aren’t mined or refined in the United States."