WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:02.850 As the president digs in on tariffs, 00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:06.510 jobs, and factories will come roaring back into our country. 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:10.260 Ridicule, pouring in on social media with memes going viral. 00:00:10.440 --> 00:00:14.280 We don't know where exactly they're coming from, but this one, an AI generated 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:15.960 video, crudely showing Americans. 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:18.030 Doing factory labor raising. 00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:21.480 The question, is a manufacturing renaissance in the United States 00:00:21.570 --> 00:00:25.200 possible and would it provide jobs that people here want? 00:00:25.410 --> 00:00:29.189 If we mean sending us back to that world in which manufacturing was 00:00:29.189 --> 00:00:31.710 a third of US employment, there's just no way that would happen. 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:35.550 Could we re industrialize the economy and add millions of working class jobs? 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:36.660 Absolutely. 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:38.280 Clearly plenty of disagreement. 00:00:38.340 --> 00:00:39.540 So what would it take? 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:41.430 Let's rewind to the 1970s. 00:00:41.580 --> 00:00:44.675 Back then, nearly 20 million people in the United States made their livings. 00:00:45.020 --> 00:00:48.770 From manufacturing, accounting for more than a fifth of total employment. 00:00:49.190 --> 00:00:53.960 The US was a leading producer of everything from cars to planes to steel. 00:00:54.500 --> 00:00:56.450 So it was a really big deal for the US economy. 00:00:56.540 --> 00:01:00.770 And what made it an especially big deal is that those jobs paid really 00:01:00.770 --> 00:01:03.260 good wages and that allowed workers. 00:01:03.675 --> 00:01:07.065 With just a high school degree, or not even a high school degree, to 00:01:07.065 --> 00:01:08.715 attain a middle class lifestyle, 00:01:08.985 --> 00:01:12.495 but then globalization starting in the eighties, NAFTA in the nineties, 00:01:12.495 --> 00:01:15.765 China joining the World Trade Organization at the turn of the century. 00:01:16.125 --> 00:01:17.595 It all shocked the system. 00:01:17.835 --> 00:01:21.884 Cheaper labor abroad meant lower prices and closed factories Here. 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:23.640 What we call the China trade Shock. 00:01:23.820 --> 00:01:28.380 Now, manufacturing employs only about 8% of the nation's workers, and to give 00:01:28.380 --> 00:01:32.880 you a sense of the wage gap, on average manufacturing jobs make $35 an hour. 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:36.300 Now, in Vietnam, for example, that rate is about a dollar 20. 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:40.260 Many economists who study these massive trends are skeptical about the 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:42.270 ability of tariffs to turn back time. 00:01:42.360 --> 00:01:45.030 We want to think about how to create good jobs. 00:01:45.320 --> 00:01:49.759 For the workers of the future, we should be having a substantial focus on 00:01:49.759 --> 00:01:54.080 how we do that in the service sectors that are are vibrant now and that are 00:01:54.080 --> 00:01:56.300 likely to emerge in the coming years. 00:01:56.509 --> 00:01:59.270 But many in the domestic manufacturing industry believe 00:01:59.270 --> 00:02:00.560 in what President Trump is doing. 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:00.590 I. 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:05.860 We are now, I would argue in a bipartisan era that tariffs are an important tool 00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:10.210 in the toolbox for industrial strategy and to reshore domestic production. 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:13.540 He acknowledges we won't be able to make things as cheaply as they do in 00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:17.200 China or many other countries, but thinks the job creation is worth it. 00:02:17.350 --> 00:02:21.100 However, many of the manufacturing jobs of old were dangerous, dirty, 00:02:21.115 --> 00:02:23.200 and difficult across the economy. 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:26.560 38 workers a day died in the US in 1970. 00:02:26.770 --> 00:02:28.420 Now the number is less than half that. 00:02:29.054 --> 00:02:31.815 There's also concern about the potential environmental impact. 00:02:32.265 --> 00:02:36.524 Even if we're able to bring more manufacturing back to the states, our 00:02:36.524 --> 00:02:39.795 environmental laws are there for a reason and it's, it's to prevent what 00:02:39.795 --> 00:02:45.345 we saw at the turn of the 20th century with cities that were cloaked in smog. 00:02:45.390 --> 00:02:51.630 With rivers that caught on fire with, uh, toxics leaking into our water supplies. 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:54.929 Other things that are different now from America's post-war industrial 00:02:54.929 --> 00:02:58.019 age union membership was more than a third of the workforce. 00:02:58.109 --> 00:03:02.010 Now it's about a 10th and tax rates on the wealthy we're above 70% in 00:03:02.010 --> 00:03:04.589 1980, and now are about half that 00:03:04.649 --> 00:03:08.250 we are shedding excess labor in. 00:03:08.895 --> 00:03:09.915 The federal government 00:03:09.915 --> 00:03:12.345 Treasury Secretary Scott Ascent, telling Tucker Carlson that 00:03:12.345 --> 00:03:15.705 government employees losing their jobs now could work in factories 00:03:15.705 --> 00:03:19.785 that will give us the labor that we need for the new manufacturing. 00:03:19.935 --> 00:03:21.615 Which brings us back to the memes. 00:03:21.795 --> 00:03:24.525 Will office workers really wanna hit the factory floor? 00:03:24.615 --> 00:03:28.485 The industry saying bringing those jobs back will spur innovation and automation 00:03:28.785 --> 00:03:30.915 leading to better manufacturing jobs. 00:03:31.230 --> 00:03:35.760 If you talk to any person that runs a factory, that's a CEO of a company that 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:40.230 produces in the us, they will tell you that innovation happens closest to the 00:03:40.230 --> 00:03:42.450 factory floor or on the factory floor. 00:03:42.510 --> 00:03:45.690 Are we going to have, you know, new technologies making the 00:03:45.690 --> 00:03:48.450 processes better, more streamlined? 00:03:48.450 --> 00:03:49.320 Absolutely. 00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:53.550 That's if the factories are built, the jobs are open, and the pay is good enough. 00:03:54.525 --> 00:03:55.815 What a great report, Yasmin. 00:03:55.815 --> 00:03:58.005 You know, I mean, everybody I've talked to and I've spent a lot 00:03:58.005 --> 00:03:59.655 of time in, uh, factories Yeah. 00:03:59.655 --> 00:04:03.255 On my beach, you know, various airplane or car plants. 00:04:03.525 --> 00:04:06.075 Uh, it takes three to five years to build a new factory. 00:04:06.075 --> 00:04:06.435 Right. 00:04:06.495 --> 00:04:09.525 So is there a disconnect between what the Trump administration wants when it 00:04:09.525 --> 00:04:13.845 comes to bringing back these jobs and the economic impact of the tariffs and how 00:04:13.845 --> 00:04:18.404 long it will take to actually kick up and create this kind of a new industrial base? 00:04:18.644 --> 00:04:18.915 Right. 00:04:18.915 --> 00:04:20.925 And, and the length of time I think is a really good point, 00:04:20.925 --> 00:04:22.395 Tom, because that's about right. 00:04:22.395 --> 00:04:25.515 Investment and steady investment stability really, I should say. 00:04:25.515 --> 00:04:27.675 And it, and with the economists that I've been speaking to, essentially they're 00:04:27.675 --> 00:04:29.235 saying, okay, great, great idea, right? 00:04:29.235 --> 00:04:33.015 Let's bring manufacturing, um, back to the United States, made in USA. 00:04:33.045 --> 00:04:34.155 Doesn't that seem great? 00:04:34.185 --> 00:04:34.485 Okay. 00:04:34.485 --> 00:04:35.565 Well, here's the issue though. 00:04:35.775 --> 00:04:37.545 That takes a heck of a lot of investment. 00:04:37.545 --> 00:04:40.035 As you mentioned, in a lot of time we're talking about billions upon 00:04:40.035 --> 00:04:43.005 billions of dollars, companies, countries, so on and so forth. 00:04:43.515 --> 00:04:47.535 If they're gonna invest that type of money, Tom. 00:04:47.580 --> 00:04:49.469 Yeah, they need stability. 00:04:50.190 --> 00:04:54.210 They need to make sure their investment is going to pay off and 00:04:54.210 --> 00:04:55.770 there won't be a rocky road ahead. 00:04:56.190 --> 00:04:59.969 And what these economists are telling me is everything with the way the 00:04:59.969 --> 00:05:02.820 markets have been going over the last couple of days, and the way in which 00:05:02.820 --> 00:05:06.780 these tariffs have been instituted points directly away from opposite 00:05:06.780 --> 00:05:09.210 from stability to instability. 00:05:09.210 --> 00:05:13.530 Hence why it is they disagree with the way in which the president is 00:05:13.530 --> 00:05:16.049 going about bringing manufacturing back to the United States. 00:05:16.495 --> 00:05:19.135 You know, and I don't think anybody disagrees with the need to bring 00:05:19.135 --> 00:05:20.755 manufacturing back if possible. 00:05:20.755 --> 00:05:24.355 But let's be clear, modern manufacturing is not the people that 00:05:24.355 --> 00:05:26.275 we saw on that spot from the 1970s. 00:05:26.305 --> 00:05:27.835 It's robots. 00:05:27.895 --> 00:05:29.695 It's robotic assembly lines. 00:05:29.695 --> 00:05:29.996 Right, right. 00:05:30.001 --> 00:05:33.265 You've got a fraction of the number of people working in factories today. 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:34.830 Yeah, e exactly right. 00:05:34.830 --> 00:05:37.560 And that's actually something that I spoke with one of our guests about earlier today 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:38.640 as we were putting this piece together. 00:05:38.640 --> 00:05:41.820 I said, listen, you talk about bringing jobs back to this country. 00:05:41.849 --> 00:05:45.300 Okay, but how many of those jobs are gonna be taken up by robotics? 00:05:45.300 --> 00:05:46.289 Yeah, by ai. 00:05:46.289 --> 00:05:49.349 Howard Lutnick himself and advisors to the president said, essentially, 00:05:49.349 --> 00:05:50.550 we're looking to robotics. 00:05:50.550 --> 00:05:51.719 We are looking to ai. 00:05:51.719 --> 00:05:55.500 He argued, um, his point saying in fact though, um, along with 00:05:55.500 --> 00:05:59.190 robotics, along with ai, there will be job creation, but nonetheless. 00:05:59.510 --> 00:06:03.920 Many of those jobs will go to the robotics and to the ai, and that is certainly yet 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.460 another concern with this manufacturing renaissance that we're talking about.