Trump’s dream of bringing manufacturing back
Trump’s dream of bringing manufacturing back to America might just come true — but only in a version of the country that looks nothing like the one he wants to “make great again.” It won’t be factories rising under a booming economy, but a desperate return driven by collapse: wages falling, the dollar losing its global privilege, and a generation of undereducated workers scrambling for jobs in a gutted system. Let’s be clear: for manufacturing to “return,” the U.S. would need to lose what made it rich in the first place. Global supply chains would have to break. Political chaos would need to scare off trust in the dollar. And an education system — hollowed out by decades of commercialization — would keep producing consumers, not builders. So yes, the factories might come back. But they’ll be built on the ruins. This isn’t industrial revival — it’s managed decline with a hard hat. The ambition to "bring manufacturing back to America," as championed most notably by Donald...