How to bring manufacturing jobs back from China

Focus on the costs of labor and energy, not trade wars

The cost of American labor is too high.
(Image credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

A huge part of Donald Trump's appeal is the sense that good jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, have been outsourced to China. It's an open question whether globalization and free trade have been the total winner that some claimed it would be and the death of factory jobs has affected some communities deeply.

The problem is that every cure seems worse than the malady. Sparking a trade war would destroy people's paychecks by raising the price of consumer goods. Industrial policy has seemed hitherto incapable of producing more than make-work jobs.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.