Southern California Fall Trade Shows Feature Made in America

August 22nd, 2023

Southern California offers two trade shows this fall for manufacturers to locate processes and sources to make their products.

The first show is the Design-2-Part Show, which is the region’s largest design and contract manufacturing trade show.  It features only American manufacturers; no reps or distributors are allowed to exhibit.  This makes it the most efficient place to meet hundreds of high-quality American suppliers of custom parts, stock parts, and manufacturing services. Over 300 service categories will be represented at this show.  From design and prototypes to production, finishing, and assemblies — you will find the answers you need at this show at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, CA. 

I will be at this show on Thursday, September 14th doing booth duty for the rubber molder we represent, Century Rubber Company. 

When:         September 13th & 14th, 2023

Hours:         Wednesday 9:30 am – 3:00 pm

Thursday 9:30 am – 3:00 pm

Where:        Ontario Convention Center

Ontario, CA

Cost:  Free Admission

Register here

The second show is the Anaheim Electronics & Manufacturing show to be held September 27th & 28th at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.  

This show will feature hundreds of companies exhibiting including reps and distributors.

  • Telecom Manufactures
  • Defense Contractors
  • Plastic and Rubber Molders
  • Medical Device Companies
  • Electronics OEM’s
  • Bio-Pharma Device Manufactures
  • Sports Products Developers
  • Coil Winding
  • Machine Shops
  • Castings
  • Sheet metal fabrication
  • 3D printing…. and More

I will be attending the show on Thursday, September 28th to walk the show and give a presentation at 1:00 PM on “How to Select the Right Processes and Sources for Your Products”

Pre-register here and a Free parking voucher will be sent to you prior to the show.

Join our reception. September. 27th, 5-7 pm for munchies , drinks, and more! Converse and commingle whether you are an Exhibitor or Attendee stop in, enjoy. 

How Could we Reduce Inflation and Balance Foreign Trade & the Federal Budget?

August 1st, 2023

We are now nearing the end of the second year of high inflation, and many are wondering why has it been so hard for the Fed to kill inflation.  Could the Fed improve the efficiency of its inflation fighting and avoid causing a recession? Could it do so in a way that balances both foreign trade and the federal budget?

“Yes” is the answer given by one of my fellow members of the Coalition for a Prosperous American, John R. Hansen, PhD, Economic Advisor, The World Bank (retd.) and Founding Director of Americans Backing a Competitive Dollar (ABCD), He wrote me that he believes the Fed could do all of this plus fulfill its mandate of economic growth with stable prices more successfully – and brighten the future for all Americans, both now and for generations to come with only a small policy tweak.”

He explained that “each of America’s ten recessions since the late 1950s has been preceded by inflation and significant increases in the Fed Funds Rate (FFR). Higher interest rates and tighter credit obviously increase costs and reduce demand for American goods resulting in inflation. Reduced demand reduces both output from U.S. producers and growth. By increasing the cost of doing business, higher Fed interest rates force businesses to reduce output and fire workers, leading to recessions.”

In his opinion, “today’s Fed faces a key challenge because when the Fed raises the Fed Funds Rate, inflows of foreign-source money dilute the Fed’s efforts to reduce the availability and increase the cost of capital. This makes it harder for the Fed to control inflation. Also, excessive stocks of domestic credit tend to reduce the Fed’s ability to raise banks’ lending rates by normal margins.

He added, “When foreign speculators buy up dollars, they raise the dollar’s exchange rate. This makes foreign goods cheaper than those produced in America, destroying demand for American products both here and abroad. U.S. producers find it increasingly difficult to compete with foreign-made goods and many may go out of business.”

Dr. Hansen has developed a solution to moderate inflows of foreign money to make the Fed’s traditional inflation-fighting tools more effective. — a Market Access Charge (MAC) “on any purchase of U.S. dollar financial assets by a foreign entity or individual. As a one-time charge, the MAC would discourage short-term investors, overseas private investors, and return-sensitive official investors such as sovereign wealth fund managers from excessive speculation and trading in U.S. dollar assets.”

He believes that the Fed “can efficiently and effectively use the MAC as a tool to fix the undervaluation of foreign currencies against the dollar. Implementing the MAC could eliminate the U.S. budget deficit, sharply reduce the threat of future debt-ceiling crises, and increase resources available for important industrial policy initiatives, especially those related to national security such as chip manufacturing.”

Furthermore, he wrote that “implementing the MAC would markedly increase the Fed’s ability to control inflation with higher interest rates and tighter monetary policies. With the MAC in place, the Fed’s efforts would no longer generate the massive inflows of foreign-source money inflows that today are triggered by high U.S./foreign interest rate spreads.”

The MAC would be a small fee that would be collected by U.S. banks on all foreign-source money seeking entry to America’s financial markets. The fee, which would be adjusted periodically to eliminate the spread between higher average U.S. interest rates and lower average foreign interest rates, would sharply reduce the speculative gains of foreign-source money. Last year, $90 trillion worth came into America’s capital markets, which was about four times GDP!

Dr. Hansen’s latest calculations indicate that “a 2% MAC charge – about half the spread between U.S. and foreign interest rates that is drawing in foreign cash and making U.S. goods and workers too pricy to compete internationally – would generate about $1.8 trillion of new net revenues per year out of the pockets of foreign speculators – enough to eliminate the U.S. budget deficit and to allow America to start paying down its largest-in-the-world national debt.”

Such revenues would have fully covered the $1.4 trillion deficit for FY2022 with $400 billion left over to support important services, cut taxes, and/or pay down the national debt. Fewer Fed interest rate increases would lower the cost of borrowing for the government. Implementing the MAC tomorrow might not save America from defaulting on its debt this year, but doing so would greatly improve America’s fiscal position, sharply reduce the risk of a recession, stimulate economies of scale, reduce inflation, and reduce America’s growing debt.

Here are a few of the many benefits that America would enjoy if Congress were to approve this trade policy initiative – a policy based on 21st century realities, not 18th century theories.

  1. Reduce the incentives of foreign countries like China and Japan to manipulate the value of their currencies against the dollar.
  2. Increase domestic and foreign demand for Made-in-America goods, thereby creating at least 3-5 million well-paying middle-class jobs, mainly in manufacturing and associated sectors.
  3. Trigger domestic and foreign investments in American manufacturing that would increase output and productive efficiency.
  4. Generate about ten times as much Government revenue per year as import duties on merchandise trade currently generate. And unlike import duties, the MAC would be paid by foreigners, not by people living in America.
  5. Be far more effective than tariffs in reducing overall U.S. trade deficits with countries like China. Tariffs can be evaded rather easily with a large number of widely known tricks like shipping through third countries, rebranding, and under-invoicing.
  6. Make it possible for the U.S. Government to implement important national security, infrastructure, environmental protection, and social investments without raising taxes or increasing the public debt.
  7. Reducing America’s debt service burden would further increase the Government’s ability to invest in high priority programs such as skills training, childcare, and other initiatives that would help the average American and increase America’s productivity without increasing the public debt.
  8. By implementing the MAC, America could roughly double its current rate of economic growth. The MAC would stimulate domestic production and exports while reducing our excessive dependence on imports.

Dr. Hansen and the Coalition for a Prosperous America believe that the MAC would be sufficient to discourage foreign inflows of investment with no material impact on foreign direct investment in factories and other directly productive activities. The MAC or something like it is urgently needed. Implementing the MAC would greatly improve America’s fiscal position, sharply reduce the risk of a recession, stimulate economies of scale, reduce inflation, and reduce America’s growing debt.  Our top priority today should be to protect our national security to remain a free country to ensure the well-being and safety of our children and grandchildren in the future.  

What Would be The Benefits of the ONSHORE Act of 2023?

July 12th, 2023

The COVID pandemic proved that we cannot rely on imports of products needed to protect the health and welfare of Americans. Offshoring of manufacturing left the U.S. vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. We cannot defend our country if the products needed by the military and defense industry become unavailable because of being sourced offshore, especially in China. It’s time for all Americans to wake up to the dangers of being dependent on other countries for manufacturers goods, especially one that has become a threat to our country.

Strengthening domestic manufacturing capabilities, especially for industries of the future, is critical for economic and national security. We must forge a new path by rebuilding American manufacturing to win the international competition for good jobs, sustained economic growth, and rebuild a strong, secure domestic supply chain if we want to remain a free country.

I am glad to see that Congress is finally paying some attention to this need:  On June 8, 2023, Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Senator JD Vance (R-OH), and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced S.1915 – ONSHORE Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill to boost domestic manufacturing and strengthen supply chains that will help bring critical supply chains back to America by assisting communities of all sizes with the site development needed to attract manufacturing facilities. 

The joint press release states: “The U.S. faces a shortage of shovel-ready sites with the necessary infrastructure and workforce for companies to quickly begin construction on new manufacturing facilities. The ONSHORE Act creates a Critical Supply Chain Site Development Grant Program within the Economic Development Administration, which would assist communities, including small towns and tribal communities, with site development to attract manufactures from critical industries to build new facilities in their area.” 

Senator Vance stated, “As our nation takes the necessary steps to reshore critical supply chains and spur innovation, everyone in America should reap the rewards This bill would deploy capital broadly to ensure the foundations of tomorrow’s industry and growth are laid in underdeveloped regions. If enacted, it will deliver good-paying jobs, build vibrant communities, and strengthen supply chains—in Ohio and around the country.” 
 
Senator Kelly stated, “As we work to bring manufacturing supply chains for critical industries from microchips to critical minerals back to America, we have to maximize this opportunity by making sure there are enough sites with the infrastructure and workforce needed for new facilities. For a lot of small towns and tribal communities, the biggest barrier to attracting investment is the cost of getting sites ready for development. We’re working to fix that, which will boost manufacturing and create good-paying jobs in every corner of our states and the country.” 
 
Senator Cotton stated, “We cannot rely on other countries like China for our essential technologies. The technologies of tomorrow should be tested, researched, and made in America. This legislation will help make the necessary investments in our communities to make that possible.”

So far, the OSHORE ACT has received enthusiastic support from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), the Global Business Alliance, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the Arizona Commerce Authority, and JobsOhio..

Nathan Ohle, President & CEO of IEDC said, “The ONSHORE Act will provide communities with essential resources to aid in attracting supply chain manufacturers. Economic developers across the U.S. will welcome this new initiative and IEDC urges the swift passage and implementation of the ONSHORE Act.”

Nancy McLernon, president & CEO of the Global business Alliance, said, “Site readiness is a critical consideration for international companies planning major investments in the United States… and urges all Senators to support this measure and other policies that make it easier to invest in America.”  

Chris Camacho, President & CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council said, “The availability of shovel-ready sites with the necessary infrastructure and skilled workforce is a crucial factor in attracting companies to invest in Greater Phoenix and bolster U.S. supply chains. This program ensures that strategic mega sites and regionally impactful locations are properly prepared for new industrial investment. With enhanced site-readiness, the United States will be better equipped to compete globally, foster the growth of critical industries, and ensure the production of essential products domestically.”

Sandra Watson President & CEO, Arizona Commerce Authority, said, “We applaud Senator Kelly for leading on this important legislation. This ONSHORE Act will significantly strengthen U.S. competitiveness for new manufacturing opportunities, bringing more jobs and investments to Arizona.”

J.P. Nauseef, JobsOhio president and CEO, said, “I applaud the introduction of the ONSHORE Act, which will help Ohio and the rest of the United States more fully capitalize on this generational opportunity by expanding the number of sites that are ready to support major development projects.”

I can see that basic infrastructure, such as road access or water and power utility hookups, is an important factor affecting where a new manufacturing facility is built, but there are so many abandoned manufacturing sites throughout the country that I question the need for the Economic Development Agency’s Critical Supply Chain Site Development Grant Program. There are also large retail stores, such as former K-Mart stores, that could be converted to manufacturing sites by remodeling and changing zoning. The redevelopment of these sites would provide good opportunities to revive the industrial base of states hard hit by offshoring, such as Michigan, Ohio, and North and South Carolina.

In my opinion, there is a greater need for a new type of Small Business Innovation grant program to fund establishing manufacturing plants to manufacture components and systems that are no longer made in the U.S. because of being offshored to China and other Asian countries.  This type of grant would also provide new industrial investment, including in rural and tribal communities, and regions with high unemployment.  These companies would help position the U.S. to compete against adversaries like China, boost domestic manufacturing, and build resilient supply chains. 

Priority for receiving such a grant should be given to proposals that would manufacture critical components and systems needed by our military and defense industrial base.  Semiconductors and batteries are not the only critical products that need to be onshored/reshored.  Components such as capacitors, resistors, inductors, transformers, connectors, and flex circuits also need to be returned to being made in the USA.

This kind of investment will better position the U.S. to compete against international competitors like China and the European Union and ensure more critical products are made in America.  

Congress Must Stop Abuse of De Minimis Imports

June 20th, 2023

When you order a product online without country-of-origin information being provided, the product may be sent directly to you by a company in a foreign country.  If the product is under $800 in value, it isn’t inspected by Customs & Border Protection (CBP) and no duties or tariffs are charged. How does this happen?

A White Paper, titled “Trade and Tariffs” on the website of the Coalition for a Prosperous America explains: “De minimis imports are the gateway for every fly-by-night foreign vendor to ship directly into the United States. When a package receives de minimis treatment, it arrives without the need of a customs broker or bond, without paying any tariffs or taxes, and without meaningful possibility of regulatory oversight.” [“de minimis” is Latin for “too trivial or minor to merit consideration.”]

The de minimis rule was added as Section 321 to the Tariff Act of 1930…The 1938 Congress set low-dollar thresholds for three different importation scenarios, assigning a $5 threshold for bonafide gifts and personal effects travelers brought with them, and a $1 de minimis for any other situation…There are three types of import situations covered by De minimis:

  1. ‘Bona fide gifts’ mailed to Americans from their friends and family abroad
  2. Articles accompanying travelers from abroad for household use
  3. A “catch all” anything else provision to ensure no undue burden was spent.”

The law’s opening line states its purpose: “to avoid expense and inconvenience to the Government disproportionate to the amount of revenue that would otherwise be collected.” It was meant to serve as an administrative tool to ensure that customs officers aren’t forced to do assessments on low-value goods which would end up costing the government more money than they would generate.”

“ For regular imports, the law requires importers to provide Customs & Border Protection (CBP) an advance manifest of the incoming cargo describing it. But de minimis shipments, including millions of e-commerce packages, typically arrive with no advance information. The information scrawled on the packages is often incomplete and unverifiable. CBP has to process a whopping 2 million of these shipments daily and does not have the capability to detect and seize illicit and dangerous goods.” Goods eligible for de minimis treatment enter the U.S. free of duties and taxes.

For most of Section 321’s history, the lowest threshold of $1 only rose to $5 by the 1990s. However, de minimis was increased to $200 by Congress in 1994, and in 2015, Congress raised the de minimis threshold to a whopping $800 after intense lobbying by express consignment companies like FedEx and UPS and e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay. In comparison, China’s de minimis is 50 yuan, which is less than $8 USD.

The CPA paper states, “The predictable result is a major calamity putting U.S. producers and traditional retailers out of business and destroying jobs. Our permissiveness is also causing lawlessness at the ports, allowing a tidal wave of counterfeit and dangerous goods to flood in.”

Not only are U.S. companies and workers subjected to a new level of job-destroying competition but dangerous illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, and counterfeit goods are shipped directly to US consumers while evading detection.

In 2022, the U. S. had a trade deficit with China of $382.9 billion up from $353.4 billion in 2021, but down from a high of $418.2 billion in 2018. The question is:  If de minimis imports were counted, wouldn’t they increase our trade deficit with China?

The answer is “yes.”  On May 15, 2023, Jeff Ferry, CPA’s Economist, released an analysis that found that the impact of de minimis on the U.S. economy is large and getting larger.  Key findings were:

  • “Our new estimate puts de minimis China revenue last year at $187.9 billion.
  • The uncounted imports increase the actual 2022 U.S. goods trade deficit by 16% from $1.19 trillion to $1.38 trillion, representing some 8.3 million lost U.S. jobs.
  • De minimis imports are deeply damaging to U.S. manufacturing industry and U.S. brick and mortar retailers.
  • With the incursion of Chinese-owned retailers like Shein and Temu into the U.S. market, we may be witnessing a historic shift away from U.S.-owned e-commerce giants like Amazon.”

CPA has been urging Congress to fix the problem of de minimis by lowering the threshold back to $9 ($5, but adjusted for inflation). The good news is that some Senators and Congressional Representatives have listened to CPA’s statement of the problem and introduced bills that would partially rectify the problems caused by de minimis.

On Thursday, June 15, 2023, U.S. Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Neal Dunn (R-FL) introduced  the Import Security and Fairness Act in the House.  U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a companion bill of the same name into the Senate. The purpose of the bills is “to stop China and Russia from exploiting the de minimis threshold and require Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect more information on de minimis shipments.”

While these House/Senate companion bills don’t reduce the dollar value of de minimis, they restrict what countries are allowed to ship de minimis shipments.  The Blumenauer/Dunn House Act states:

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL. —An article may not be admitted free of duty or tax under the authority provided by subsection (a)(2)(C) if the country of origin of such article, or the country from which such article is shipped, is—

‘‘(A) a nonmarket economy country (as such term is defined in section 771(18)); and

‘‘(B) a country included in the priority watch list (as such term is defined in section 182(g)(3) of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C.32242(g)(3))).”

According to an article titled, “Is China a Non-Market Economy?datedApril 2, 2019  by Daniel Griswold and Danielle Parks of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,  “The US Department of Commerce currently labels 11 countries as NMEs: Belarus, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Turkmenistan. In the past, some countries designated as NMEs were then converted to market economies (MEs), such as Poland (1993), Russia (2002), and Ukraine (2006).” This means that imports from China would not be admitted free of duty or tax.

With regard to the priority watch list or “Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974…requires the U.S. Trade Representative to identify countries that deny adequate and effective IP protections or fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on IP protection.” China is the county that most flagrantly violates U. S. Intellectual Property rights, so is most certainly on the watch list.

On Wednesday, June 14, 2023 Senators Bill Cassidy, (R-LA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and JD Vance (R-OH) introduced the De minimis Reciprocity Act of 2023 “to stop Communist China and other countries from abusing U.S. trade laws that allow small dollar imports into the U.S. duty free.”

Senator Cassidy’s press release states, “The bill would bar Chinese exports from entry via the expedited “de minimis” channel and reduce the threshold for duty-free imports into the U.S. to an amount that matches the threshold our trade partners use, ensuring reciprocity and increasing transparency at our borders.”

Additionally, “The De Minimis Reciprocity Act would also:

  • Exclude untrustworthy countries from using the ‘trusted’ de minimis channel. 
  • Only allow express carriers to facilitate de minimis imports into the U.S. to help better at stop counterfeits and fentanyl at the border.
  • Require more information on every package entering the U.S.
  • Use the revenue proceeds to establish a fund for reshoring industry from China.” 

While China may be the most egregious in taking advantage of de minimis shipments, we also have trade deficits with India, Vietnam, South Korea, and many other countries.  I am sure that uncounted de minimis shipments from these other countries would increase our trade deficits for those countries also.   I personally would like to see a much simpler bill that incorporates CPA’s recommendation of reducing de minimis shipments to $9 for every country.  In my opinion, this is the only fair, long-term solution.    

Economic Indicators Report Reveals a Shrinking Middle Class

May 23rd, 2023

A long-time acquaintance of mine, Charles Shor, contacted me recently to inform me that he had founded a new non-profit organization, Blue Collar Dollar Institute.  Charlie has been a long-time reader of my blog articles, and we share a common concern — the shrinking middle class.  We also shared the same opinion of the main reason for the cause of the shrinking middle class:  the loss of higher-paying manufacturing jobs by American manufacturers outsourcing manufacturing to foreign countries, particularly China. 

We agreed that the problem is, “By offshoring much of our manufacturing base, the United States has developed a dependency on importing consumer goods, amassing debt in the private and public sectors, and relying on critical goods from abroad in times of crisis such as pandemics and wars.”

We both feel that the middle class is in trouble.  “The Blue Collar Dollar Institute aims to understand how the United States’ decision to subsidize foreign manufacturing is decreasing the size of our middle class, increasing the amount of Americans in poverty and catapulting forward the wealth in both the top 5% and foreign competitors.”

The Institute’s Mission Statement is: “The Blue Collar Dollar Institute believes that the United States cannot offer a middle-class lifestyle to a large majority of Americans without possessing a strong and vibrant manufacturing sector.  Our non-partisan mission is to research data, inform the public, and advocate for policy in order to help strengthen US manufacturing and goods-producing sectors. 

Prior to founding Blue Collar Dollar Institute, Charlie’s original foundation, The Charles Shor Foundation, collaborated with  Dr. David Perkis, Purdue Center for Economic Education, Krannert School of Management, to prepare a 200-page Economic Indicators Report.

Charlie encouraged me to contact Dr. Perkis, and we had a long conversation when I connected with him last week.  He explained that the report’s purpose “is to provide a picture of the economic and social wellbeing of the United States in comparison to five other industrialized nations:  China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Singapore… Special attention is given to the manufacturing sector due to its perceived ability to offer high paying jobs and to create additional jobs in communities.”

One of the most serious facts the report reveals is: “Since 1945, the percentage of jobs in manufacturing, construction, and mining has dropped from 40% to 14%, eliminating some of the highest paying jobs for high school graduates.”

The result is: “The dreams of Americans obtaining the basics of a middle-class lifestyle, such as owning a home, sending their kids to college, and obtaining affordable housing, have become more and more out of reach for the average household.”  I’ve seen this in my own family as my two adult children have not been able to buy homes in San Diego, CA.

The results of the research revealed that “Although the United States is still the world leader in total output, it has some dubious distinctions in comparison to the other countries of this study.” The other countries are China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.  In comparison to these countries, the United States has:

  • The least amount of trade as a share of GDP
  • The largest trade deficits
  • The highest level of adult wealth
  • The most significant wealth inequality
  • The highest level of health care spending (without the best outcomes).
  • The largest level of military spending
  • The lowest GDP share of manufacturing

Needless to say, I only had time to read through the first 40 pages of the lengthy report, so I will only point out some key findings related to manufacturing and trade issues.

As I have written previously in my books and blog articles, the U.S. has trade deficits since 1976, so it was no surprise to me that the report states: “From 1992 – 2019, deficits in manufactured goods have totaled $16.3 trillion (2010 USD), with the bulk of the deficit occurring since 1992 ($15.5 trillion). Since 1992, our largest deficits in manufactured goods have been with China ($4.6 trillion) and Japan ($2.5 trillion).”

Another noteworthy point is “The United States is still the world leader in output as measured by Gross

Domestic Product (Figure 1). In 2019, GDP measured $21.4 trillion USD, compared to $14.4 trillion from its next closest rival, China.”


I’ve long said and wrote that manufacturing jobs are the foundation of the middle class, and if we lose sufficient manufacturing jobs, we will lose the middle class. The loss of middle-class jobs in the U.S. is demonstrated by the fact that “the United States is no longer the leader in average income ($62 thousand USD). That distinction belongs to Singapore ($101 thousand USD).” The result has been “Income inequality in the US has increased significantly over the past 50 years (Figure 10). Income growth for the lowest 60% of income earners fell from the late 1990s through 2015.”

This may be due to the fact that the percentage of jobs in producing goods went down from 39% in 1964 to 15% in 2019, while the percentage of jobs in services increased from 62% in 1964 to 85% in 2019.  The average non-supervisory wage of goods jobs was $944/week I 2019, while the services wage was $699. However, service jobs in retail paid even lower in 2019 —$594/week.

With regard to budgets and deficits, “Except for a four-year period at the end of the Clinton administration, the United States has run a national budget deficit every year since 1970…The governments of Japan and the US carry the most debt…Japan has managed to accumulate the largest government debt as a percentage of GDP, totaling 232% (Figure 22). The United States is a distant

second carrying debt just over 100% of GDP…However, total government debt does not tell the whole story as some may be owed to a country’s own citizens while some will be due to foreign entities. For

instance, of Japan’s 232% debt, 208% is owed to domestic entities with a small portion due overseas (Figure 23). Within our comparison group, the United States government maintains the greatest holdings of debt to foreigners (37%).” 

As I have written in previous articles, there is a relationship between budget deficits and trade deficits.  When a country is buying more imports than selling exports, this produces less revenue for the government, so the country goes into debt to pay its expenses.  We lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, and have only added back 1.2 million manufacturing jobs from reshoring and Foreign Direct Investment.  If these manufacturing workers had to get service jobs, they would be receiving lower wages and thus paying lower taxes.  In addition, the higher percentage of workers being paid lower wages for a service job results in their paying less taxes, again reducing the government’s revenue.

The report also mentions the benefits of manufacturing for a town, region, state, and the country as a whole.  This is because

1) “Most goods can be traded anywhere in the world, creating more exports and

generating income from overseas, whereas services are typically limited to

local markets.

2) Manufacturing positions create more additional jobs in the local community

than do service oriented positions. This is the multiplier effect of manufacturing.”

The report explains, “Job multipliers indicate how many total jobs will be created within a region due

to a new position in a particular industry.”  The job multiplier effect for manufacturing jobs ranges from 2.2 to 4.0, whereas the multiplier effect for service jobs ranges from 1.3 to 1.9.

The goals of the Blue Collar Dollar Institute to have strong manufacturing, construction, and mining sectors would help middle-class households have a prosperous life in the following ways: 

  • “By creating high-paying jobs for individuals without a college education. 
  • By selling more products overseas than we buy overseas, bringing net funds into the country. 
  • By making our nation less dependent on foreign countries for critical goods in times of crisis such as pandemics and wars, thus reducing risk for the average American.”

I look forward to continuing my discussions with Dr. Perkis to explore ways in which Industry Reimagined 2030 can collaborate to achieve the goals we have in common, such as adding 5 million middle-income manufacturing jobs and $1 trillion to the economy by 2030.

Solutions to Address Outsourcing by Multinationals & Rebuild American Manufacturing

May 9th, 2023

Michael Collins wrote, “Hope is not a plan” in his book Dismantling the American Dream, How Multinational Corporations Undermine American Prosperity. In other words, we cannot hope to rebuild American manufacturing without doing things differently than we’ve done in the past 30 years.  The industrial policies we have been following resulted in the decimation of the U.S. manufacturing base with the loss of over 70,000 manufacturing companies and 5.8 million manufacturing jobs.

Michael proposes a number of solutions in his book, some of which are the same or similar to solutions I proposed in my book, Rebuild Manufacturing – the key to American Prosperity. First, we both agree that we need a new industrial policy and plan.  The free trade policy we’ve followed since WWII has only benefited multinational corporations at the cost of millions of manufacturing jobs and an escalating trade deficit. Every President in the past 30 years had the goal of doubling exports and creating more manufacturing jobs, but the trade and industrial policies they promoted did just the opposite. President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan has the goal of creating five million jobs, but without measurable objectives and a plan to achieve those objectives, Michael feels “nothing will change.”  

Michael points out that “it will take a reduction in the trade deficit of 20 percent to bring back one million manufacturing jobs.” That means, we would have to reduce our trade deficit by 100% of the 2020 trade deficit total to create five million jobs.  However, the opposite occurred as the trade deficit increased from “$676.7 billion in 2020 to $861.4 billion in 2021… [and] $945.3 billion in 2022” according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Michael notes that “politicians, Democrats or Republicans, don’t seem to be willing to publicly commit to an objective of reducing the trade deficit.” He comments, “This is dangerous territory, and government is the only entity that can do anything about the trade deficit.”

I came to a similar conclusion in the chapter on “Have Free Trade Agreements Benefited American Manufacturing” of my book.  I also recommended that the U.S. do not enter into any new trade agreements, and Michael agrees, writing. “We should oppose any FTA that will cost jobs or increase the trade deficit.”

The question is how do you reduce a trade deficit.?  Since Michael and I are both members of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA), we support addressing currency manipulation and the overvalued dollar as two of the main ways to balance trade.  Michael wrote, “The root cause of the trade deficit is that the United States is not price competitively primarily because the dollar is overvalued by 20 to 30 percent.” However, he wrote, “Most of the large importer corporations and Wall Street do not want the government to enforce the current WTO and IMF laws against currency manipulation or to devalue the dollar because they want to keep foreign import prices low.”

Michael summarizes four methods that can be used to reevaluate the dollar:

  • Impose countervailing duties (CVDs) – tariffs or taxes on imported goods that offset subsidies by trading partners.
  • Tax purchases by using a Market Access Charge (MAC) on all foreign investments in the U.S., including stocks, bonds, real estate, companies, or intellectual property.
  • Implement a withholding tax on the profits and dividends earned by foreign inventors that finance the dollar.
  • Tax sellbacks – impose a 30% tax on the profits of companies that have offshored.

Michael wrote that “A new working paper from the CPA called ‘Imports Growth and Job Creation from a Competitive Dollar’ reveals that if the dollar value could be reduced by 27 percent it would result in export growth five times faster than baseline, while imports would grow more slowly.”

Another CPA proposal that Michael supports is “Make existing China tariffs permanent” and “impose the 4A and 4B tariffs.”   He wrote, “The Trump tariffs with China are working, and in fact, are our only defence against China’s mercantilist cheating.” He recommends that “Congress should limit tariff exclusions for importers, especially those that are not using the imports to manufacture in the United States.”

Michael also recommends creating “a more level playing field with our trade partners” by building reciprocity into our trade agreements.  This would “allow the United States to impose reciprocal duties on all countries who have higher tariffs if they do not lower their tariffs and VATs.”  I wrote in my book, “Over 150 countries in the world have shifted a significant portion of their tax mix to border adjustable consumption taxes —Value Added Taxes (VATs) or goods and services taxes (GSTs)…The rates range from 12% to 24% and average 17% globally.” In 2017, CPA proposed a 12% GST to be applied as a credit to the 15.3% payroll tax. Michael wrote, “We should level the playing field by introducing a program to match the foreign country’s VAT…”

In order to reduce the unfair advantage that multinational corporations have under current U/S. trade policy, Michael supports CPA’s proposal for “Sales Factor Tax Apportionment” that “would tax profits based on where the product is sold and eliminate the ability of multinational companies avoiding taxes by shifting profits offshore.” I had explained that this tax proposal would be “determined solely on the percent of a company’s world-wide sales made to U.S. customers.”

He also recommends the new proposal for a “Global Minimum Corporate Tax of 15 percent”, which “would give government the ability to tax our home company’s overseas profits at 15 percent, and deter them from us9mg tax shelter countries to avoid taxes.”

Michael supports CPA’s proposal for the U. S. to withdraw from the World Trade Organization (WTO) because the requirement of consensus on trade rules and decisions by the 164 member countries have “turned out to be detrimental to the United States,” In addition, he supports “repealing the Permanent Normalized Trade Relations (PNTR) with both Russia and China.”

He writes that these actions are first steps in “decoupling form China” and then lists a dozen different steps to be taken thereafter that CPA recommends as part of the decoupling process.

Michael also briefly mentions the work of Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative, to help companies use the Total Cost of Ownership Estimator™ to reshore manufacturing to America.  I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Harry Moser since 2010 as an authorized presenter on how to use TCO to return manufacturing to America and devoted a whole chapter on reshoring in my book. 

The Reshoring Initiative 2022 Data Report  states, “Jobs announced in 2022 were a record-breaking 364,000 – up from 238,000 in 2021. The totalnumber of jobs announced since 2010 is now nearly 1.6million.”  However, Michael notes that “at the current rate of reshoring, it will take over 30 years to reach Biden’s goal of five million jobs.”

Michael’s last chapter makes a brief mention of the need for workforce training and comments that instead of training, “MNCs have used stop gap measures such as outsourcing, automation, buying services from foreign vendors, and poaching trained workers from their suppliers, but these strategies no longer work and the shortage of workers has caught up to American companies.”

I felt that workforce training was so important to rebuilding American manufacturing that I included a chapter on the subject of how to foster and develop the next generation of manufacturing workers in my book. Since my book was published, I have written many articles on this topic.

Most of the above recommendations are focused on government policies, but the likelihood of making such major changes in policies is slim to none at the present time. That is why we need to shift the mindset from a prevailing worldview of ‘inevitable decline’ of American manufacturing to one of ‘vibrant opportunity. We need a new level of thinking and action that scales solutions at hand with unprecedented collaboration and organize our efforts to achieve the following true north goals by 2030:

  •  50,000 world-class domestic manufacturing small – medium– large enterprises (10x increase)
  • Add 5 million middle-income manufacturing jobs (40%)
  • Add $1 trillion to the economy (40% increase)

We need to focus our attention on disruptive and emerging opportunities that create new growth opportunities for companies, people, communities.  We welcome collaboration with Industry Reimagined 2030.

How Multinational Corporations Undermine American Prosperity

April 18th, 2023

Long-time American manufacturing advocate, Michael Collins, added to his extensive body of work with a 4th book, Dismantling the American Dream: How Multinational Corporations Undermine American Prosperity  Michael had a 35-year career in manufacturing before retiring and uses hhis experience to write a book he describes as “a concise story that tells what America’s multinationals did to the U.S. economy and how they did it.”

Michael told me that one of his purposes in writing the book was to take advantage of a commitment letter signed by 181 CEOs on August 19, 2019 “to lead their companies not just for the benefit of their investors, but for the benefit of all stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.” He wanted to “provide the managers of the 181 corporations a good summary of the problems and obstacles they will need to address and overcome if they are going to make good on their commitments.”

In his book, Michael reveals that multinational corporations (MNCs) began to follow Milton Friedman’s doctrine — an entity’s greatest responsibility lies in the satisfaction of the shareholders.” He wrote, “In the 1980s, the Business Roundtable translated this into shareholder value or ‘the point of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners, period.’” This resulted in “favoring shareholders over all stake holders and short-term profits over society and country.”

His book shows “how the economy has been restructured to fit the needs of the MNCs and their investors, resulting in huge gains in wealth for the few [and] rising inequality while tens of millions of Americans find themselves unable to attain the standard of living of previous generations.”

He writes that outsourcing “began as early as the 1970s, but accelerated in the 1990s after the U.S. negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).” He writes, Outsourcing by American corporations has caused permanent damage to American workers, manufactur9ng, supplier companies and the living standards of many families. It may lead to short-term profits for the corporations, but eventually, the corporations will lose the technology and the market to foreign corporations.” He opines that “Over the last 40 years, the MNCs commitment to short-term profits, shareholder value, and outsourcing has resulted in the deindustrialization of America.”

All of this outsourcing caused a surge in inequality, and he quotes the Job Quality Index developed by the Coalition for Prosperous America, which shows that “In 1972, 27 percent of all private industry jobs were low-quality jobs. Today, low-quality jobs are 59 percent of all jobs.”

His brief coverage of “the Myth of Free Trade” corroborates many of the points I have made in blog articles I have written in the past 13 years. I particularly liked his comment, “the winnings of free trade have gone mostly to the investors —the MNCs and their shareholders. Free trade has been very hard on workers, manufacturers, suppliers, and industries…”

In his chapter “Innovation and the Loss of Technology, he lists several key American inventions patented between 1945 – 1982, such as microwave ovens, hard disk drives, laser, MRIs, GPS, mobile phones, personal computers, and comments that “most of the inventions listed above are no longer manufactured in America.” He points out that “China has already swallowed the low-tech products we used to make. What they want now is our advanced technology products and production processes that were developed in the United States. The technologies they are after are all listed in their Made in China 2025 plan.”

The data in his chapter “The Slow Erosion of American Manufacturing Industries is mind-blowing and frightening with regard to how many manufacturing sectors have declined, some to the point of no return.  His comment that “all former Presidents since Bill Clinton rely on their economic advisors and abandon manufacturing” rings true.

His analysis of Financialization, “defined as the ‘growing scale and profitability of the finance sector at the expense of the rest of the economy and the shrinking regulation of its rules and returns” provided a new perspective for me.  It was startling to learn that “today finance has 40 percent of the nations’ profits with 5 percent of the jobs.”  He writes that some of ways “Financialization has hurt the American economy” are:

  • Rising inequality
  • Stagnant wages
  • Falling productivity
  • The decline of GDP growth
  • The decline of innovation
  • Decline of capital investment

In the next chapter, he discusses the fact that reducing corporates taxes to keep multinationals producing here in the U.S. hasn’t worked because there are too many loopholes that corporations can use to avoid paying taxes, not to mention reincorporating in tax haven countries or shifting taxes to subsidiaries in lower tax countries.  As a result, reductions in corporate taxes have caused our national debt to escalate because multinational corporations have not paid their fair share of taxes.

The next two chapters focus on how MNCs have developed a more powerful influence on the economy and Congress; first, by buying influence in government with lobbying money, and second by forming monopolies and oligopolies.  His itemization of the lobbying money spent by the top 33 companies in lobbying Congress is staggering.  This explains why trade associations and even manufacturing-related unions like the AFL/CIO Industrial sector have so little influence on legislation.

I was familiar with monopolies, but had to look up information on oligopolies. Essentially, they are industries dominated by a few large companies. Michael writes, “In the last 20 years, oligopolies have been created by mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of MNCs.” He then describes modern day oligopolies:  airlines, banks, hospitals, meat packers, beer, smart phones, pharmaceutical companies, and railroads. He opines, “The agglomeration of market power also leads to political power where the oligopolies and monopolies create and control the rules of the economic game which leads to political inequality.”

In the subsequent chapters, Michael addresses the skilled worker shortages, mainly caused by a lack of workforce training by MNCs, especially apprenticeships, and the lack of high paying manufacturing jobs compared to service jobs as a result of outsourcing manufacturing to other countries. 

His chapter on “The Threat of China” is so thorough that no summary could do justice to his comprehensive coverage of this topic.  He writes, “The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed the vulnerability of U.S. supply chains.” He advises, “The first step is to recognize China as a competitor not a trading partner and do everything possible to stop this competitor form gain strategic and tactical advantages. He notes, “It is not an exaggeration to say we are in the beginning of a cold war with China and must defend ourselves as we did with the Soviet Union.”

 His next two chapters are devoted to solutions to address the decline in productivity and GDP growth, currency manipulation and the overvalued dollar.

His chapter on “Why we Must Save America’s Manufacturing Sector” echoes most of the points I made in my first book, Can American Manufacturing be Saved?  Why we should and How we Can, published in 2009.  Michael and I are definitely on the same page, and both of us have published hundreds of articles that expressed our opinions on the importance of manufacturing to our national economy. I concur with his statement, “More than any other business sector, the U.S. multinationals were responsible for the erosion of the industrial commons. They outsourced all kinds of technologies and products with reckless abandon and with no regard for the skills and knowledge that would make America competitive in the future.”  I have made the same point many times that Michael expressed when he wrote, “The American MNCs have become ‘stateless’ entities with little or no loyalties to the home country.”

The final chapter provides his recommended solutions for the key problems he has identified, which you need to read for yourself. He makes an appeal to the 181 CEOs to keep their pledge so they can contribute to saving and rebuilding American manufacturing in order to protect our national security that is at risk.

This book is a must-read for everyone who is concerned about the future of the manufacturing industry, especially with regard to our national security.  Every Senator and Congressional Representative needs to read this book.  I suggest you buy one book for yourself and one to give to your Representative.

It’s the supply chain … stupid!

April 4th, 2023

Ever since the COVID pandemic started three years ago, we have suffered from disruptions in supply chains for many products used in our daily lives as well as products and components needed for our consumer products, industrial, and defense industries.  Why?  Because we stopped making things in the USA. We outsourced everything from household goods to high tech products, as well as pharmaceuticals and medical devices. First, it was to friendly countries like the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan, and then it became predominantly China after they entered the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The shortages of semiconductors, has made news headlines for the past two years. Semiconductors are used in everything from consumer products such as cell phones, computers, and TVs as well autos, trucks, airplanes, boats, ships, drones, and space vehicles.  There is hardly any product that doesn’t have a semiconductor in it these days, even refrigerators and washing machines. Many other electronic and electro-mechanical components are also no longer made in the USA.

Our domestic innovation capacity is contingent on a robust and diversified industrial base. Our loss of manufacturing capabilities has led to a loss in innovation capacity. When manufacturing heads offshore, innovation follows. We currently lack the ecosystem of innovation, skills, and production facilities to have the secure and resilient supply chains required for economic security. As a result, we are no longer self-sufficient in producing the products we depend on for our modern way of life.    

Even worse, we are no longer self-sufficient in producing the goods and systems needed to defend our country.  Our national security and freedom as an independent country is at risk. This fact was confirmed in the article “From rockets to shells, Pentagon struggles to feed war machine,” from the March 25th issue of the New York Times which stated, “The United States lacks the capacity to produce the arms that the nation and its allies need at a time of heightened superpower tensions…Industry consolidation, depleted manufacturing lines and supply chain issues have combined to constrain the production of basic ammunition like artillery shells while also prompting concern about building adequate reserves of more sophisticated weapons including missiles, air defense systems and counter-artillery radar…illustrated by the shortage of solid rocket motors needed to power a broad range of precision missile systems, such as the ship-launched SM-6 missiles made by Raytheon…Other shortages slowing production include simple items such as ball bearings, a key component of certain missile guidance systems, and steel castings, used in making engines.”

There are two main ways that government can help rebuild the domestic manufacturing base:  penalize offshoring to other countries and incentivize American manufacturers to make is here or reshore their manufacturing to the USA.  The Biden Administration and Congress have reacted to this supply chain crisis within the last year by passing the following legislation:

CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to “boost American semiconductor research, development, and production, ensuring U.S. leadership in the technology that forms the foundation of everything from automobiles to household appliances to defense systems.”

Amendment to The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Buy American Act – “This rule increases the domestic content threshold initially from 55 percent to 60 percent, then to 65 percent in calendar year 2024 and to 75 percent in calendar year 2029.”

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act – This Act changes U.S. policy to establish “a rebuttable presumption that the importation of any goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.” Previous law required companies to take reasonable care to avoid products produced with forced labor. This Act requires companies to prove that products from Xinjiang province were not produced with forced labor.

While these new laws and amendments to previous laws will help ease future supply chain disruptions, the real solution to the supply chain crisis is to change the financial calculations to enable making as much as possible in the United States. The Reshoring Initiative has been working towards this goal since its founding in 2010 by promoting the use of the Total Cost of Ownership Estimator® developed by Harry Moser

According to the Reshoring Initiative 2022 Data Report, “Reshoring plus FDI have followed a strong upward trend for 13 years. The underlying trend is driven by the recognition that, in many cases, the total cost of offshoring exceeds that of sourcing domestically. There have been peaks and valleys in the trend. 2017 was driven by the 2017 tax and regulatory cuts. 2018 and 2019 declined due to the trade war. The trend resurged from 2020 to 2022 driven by companies recognizing their vulnerability to supply chain disruptions and, most recently, to geopolitical events.”

The report states, “Jobs announced in 2022 were a record breaking 364 ,000 up from 238 ,000 in 2021. The total number of jobs announced since 2010 is now nearly 1.6 million…we expect 2023 and 2024 to remain strong, continuing at approximately 350,000 job announcements per year. If the current trajectory continues, the U.S. will reduce the trade deficit, add jobs, and become safer, more self-reliant and resilient.”

We need continue to rebuild our domestic manufacturing industrial base if we are going to achieve the goals of Industry Reimagined 2030 to have 50,000 more world-class domestic American manufacturers and a $1 trillion GDP by 2030

How to Buy More Made in USA Products

March 21st, 2023

More than 70% (72%) of American consumers prefer American-made products and nearly half (48%) say they’d be willing to pay around 10–20% more. An exclusive poll about buy-American shopping preferences from Retail Brew and The Harris Poll was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,986 US adults from July 22–24, 2022.

Overwhelmingly, Americans want to know where their products are made, and they can do so at retail stores by looking for a “Made in USA” label when they shop in person.  However, when they shop online, there is no country of original information provided in the description of a product by the top online e-commerce companies, Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

In 2020, The COOL Online Act  (S. 3707) was introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin to require a prominent country-of-origin description for all products sold online as well as clear disclosure of the country in which the seller of the product is located. However, big retailers including Amazon want to hide where their products are coming from and lobbied to prevent this bill from being voted on by the Senate.  The text of this bill was added as an amendment to the Endless Frontier Act (S. 1260), which passed the Senate, but was not voted on by the House.  A similar bill is planned to be introduced this year.

In addition, all of the e-commerce companies take advantage of the “De Minimis” rule, created by Congress as  Section 321 to the Tariff Act of 1930. “De Minimis” is Latin for “too trivial or minor to merit consideration.” Its purpose was “to avoid expense and inconvenience to the Government disproportionate to the amount of revenue that would otherwise be collected.”

A White Paper by the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) states, “The 1938 Congress set low-dollar thresholds for three different importation scenarios, assigning a $5 threshold for bona fide gifts and personal effects travelers brought with them, and a $1 de minimis for  any other situation…Congress raised our de minimis threshold to a whopping $800 in 2015. China’s is 50 yuan, which is less than $8.  Goods eligible for de minimis treatment enter the U.S. free of duties and taxes…Express consignment companies like FedEx and UPS and e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay are the primary actors lobbying to keep de minimis as a giant open-border backdoor.

“U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) itself acknowledges that raising the de minimis threshold

changed the very nature of international trade.” Under the traditional paradigm, businesses would contract foreign manufacturers, entering into supply contracts, importing particular products by the container-load, and then distribute products to domestic retailers. “Large shipments would be consigned to a single purchaser, and typically consist of the same or similar goods. Under the new paradigm, that same shipping container has individual packages destined for hundreds of individual customers who are fulfilling the legal role of “importer…”

“For regular imports, the law requires importers to provide Customs & Border Protection (CBP) an advance manifest of the incoming cargo describing it. But de minimis shipments, including millions of e-commerce packages, typically arrive with no advance information.”

CPA recommends that Congress “fix this by lowering the threshold back to $9 ($5, but adjusted for inflation).”

One company is leading the effort to adopt a private sector solution.  Don Buckner Sr., recently contacted me about the new online marketplace he is developing to provide consumers with easy access to domestic manufactured products. MadeInUSA.com.  Customers will be able to identify and search by three sourcing categories: Made in USA, Made in USA with US & Global Materials, and Assembled in the USA. They may also search by a Business Certification such as Veteran, Women, Minority, GSA Holder, or Small Business. This will increase a company’s visibility, allowing access to opportunities they might not otherwise have.  Vendors must certify that products displayed on the site are produced in compliance with the Federal Trade Commission Made in USA claim. Strict adherence is required for all vendors.  MadeInUSA is now registering vendors and products at https://madeinusa.com/vendor.  The website is scheduled to go live in late 2023.

I asked what will make his website different from other websites offering Made in USA products, and

Don said, “MadeInUSA.com is an Enterprise level eCommerce marketplace specifically designed to highlight and promote vendors to domestically produced products. MadeInUSA.com is built using the latest technology and is the most comprehensive, secure, online resource for consumers and corporate buyers  As the premier and trusted online marketplace for products made in the USA, the site offers a doorway between U.S. manufacturers and the world.”

Customers will be able to identify and search vendors by one of three categories: Made in USA, Made in USA with US & Global Materials, and Assembled in the USA. They may also search for vendors by a Business Certification such as Veteran, Women, Minority, GSA Holder, or Small Business. This will increase a company’s visibility, allowing access to opportunities they might not otherwise have.

Don explained, “The MadeInUSA.com eCommerce platform is based on a drop ship model and will collect and pay all sales tax and shipping costs. All the manufacturers must do is build it and box it”

The website is now open for vendor applications to offer products directly to consumers. Vendors may list products for free but must certify that products displayed on the site are produced in compliance with the FTC Made in USA claim. Strict adherence is required for all vendors. Manufacturers and vendors can register by visiting https://madeinusa.com/vendor to submit an application.   

U.S. consumers prefer to buy domestic products.  Today, it is hard for consumers to do that and easy for imports to by-pass customs duties.  Congress has legislators working to fix labeling and import duties. I applaud the focus of Don Buckner to reconnect U.S. manufacturers to the U.S. consumers and to create American jobs through increased demand for USA branded products. 

Industry Reimagined 2030 is working with national associations and the private sector to increase consumer purchases of U.S. goods. We share the same commitment that buying USA-made products isn’t just patriotic, it’s an investment into our communities, our labor force, and our economy.  We aim to increase U.S. purchases by $500 billion that will result in 2 million jobs by 2030.  

How We Can Stop China’s Global Strategy to Cripple America

February 21st, 2023

T

Two years ago, Curtis Ellis, one of my heroes died after losing his battle with cancer. Curtis was a prominent trade expert and an astute architect of economic nationalism. In my tribute article to him, I wrote “Curtis was a true patriot and defender of liberty, who believed in all of the greatness of our country and devoted much of his life to putting America first in economic policies to benefit American workers and not just Wall Street.” He believed that we have to fight to save America to create jobs and prosperity by bringing higher paying manufacturing jobs back to America. He was a patriotic crusader against the unfair trade agreements that had caused the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and our enormous trade deficits year after year.

I knew Curtis had been working on a book before he died, but didn’t know if he had finished it. I was pleased to learn that he had. His longtime partner, Maxine Albert, found a publisher for this timely book – that just launched.  Maxine wrote: “He pushed himself to finish this book because he saw the Chinese Communist’s Party as the most dangerous threat to the nation he loved. Curtis saw something truly sinister in China’s trade abuse as economic warfare.”

It was a great honor to be able to read an advanced copy to write this review of his vitally important book, Pandemonium – China’s global strategy to cripple America, available on amazon and Barnes & Noble. https://amzn.to/3RNWHf1Curtis Ellis  

Curtis Ellis was one of the early policy experts to realize the danger the Chinese Communist Party posed to America.  He understood the world economy and pointed out that “free trade” was a fallacy because of the mercantilist, totalitarian dictatorship in China.  He sounded the alarm on the gathering storm with a chilling account of China’s assault on America in its quest to be the Superpower of the 21st Century.  He foresaw that a crisis with China is inevitable because of their increasing aggression and frightening military buildup that has been funded by America’s manufacturers and consumers. 

He had the talent to be able to transform a complicated economic topic into an easily understandable and compelling narrative that would motivate people to act, and he does that by giving us a detailed, comprehensive and winning plan to declare our independence from China.

In the introduction, Curtis reminded us “Americans lived in a global economy when we wrote the first Declaration of Independence. At that time, the ‘global economy’ was known as the British Empire“ He wrote, “Americans were compelled to send their fiber, timber, and ore on ships across the ocean to ‘the workshop of the world,’ where they were fashioned into finished goods, then sent back and sold to Americans at prices set by others…Today the ‘workshop of the world’ is not Britain, but China.”  

In his first chapter, “How America Became an Invalid,” he outlines how our present position “didn’t just happen. It was not inevitable. It was the result of specific decisions made by specific people in specific places and specific positions of power.”

From my own research for my own books, I was aware of some of these key decisions that led to the decimation of American manufacturing, but I didn’t realize that the ideology of “globalism” started so long ago.  Curtis wrote about a hearing held by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress on “the future of manufacturing” that occurred in Washington, D. C. in June 1967.  He wrote, “At the hearing, George Ball, a Wall Street grandee who served in the State Department under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, laid out the ideology of globalism” in which “earth straddling corporations should replace the ‘crazy quilt” of independent nations as the organizing principle of society.” Ball recommended that “Washington should work for “a considerable erosion of the rigid concepts of national sovereignty…the ‘common philosophy’ and ‘common goal’ should be economic efficiency and corporate profits…”

The adoption of this globalist ideology by government and industry certainly explains what has happened in the past 55 years— tax policies that favor multinational global corporations and American corporations moving manufacturing to other countries to maximize profits, first to El Salvador, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Mexico, and finally China.

In chapter II, “A Dysfunctional Relationship,” Curtis gives a detailed description of how the U.S. relationship with China has become dysfunctional over the past five decades since President Nixon opened our doors to China. 

In chapter III, “Meet the New Boss:  The Global Elite,” he describes how “What’s good for America” became replaced by “What’s Good for the Global Economy” to the detriment of patriotic American businessmen and women. 

Chapter IV, “How China Buys Influence” outlines China’s strategy “to shape American public opinion and influence our economic and government policies to benefit the Beijing regime.”

Chapter V covers a subject near and dear to my heart, “The American System —The Origin of America’s Prosperity” that I wrote about in the first chapter of my book, Can American Manufacturing be Saved? Why we should and how we can. He uses many of the same quotes of the founders of our country that I used, such as “A free people…should promote such manufactories as tend to render then independent from others for essential, particularly military supplies,” from George Washington’s first address to Congress. 

Curtis wrote that the American System was conceived by Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, by imposing tariffs on imported goods to “raise revenue and protect American industries from predatory competition…. The American System…guided U.S national economic development from the earliest days of the republic, through the Civil War, and into the better part of the twentieth century.” 

In chapter VI, “Setting the Record Straight on Adam Smith,” Curtis clarifies the “foundational economic treatise on the principles of the free market system” proposed by Adam Smith in his book, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776.

Chapter VII, “Tearing Down ‘The House of World Order” describes how “the international rules-based order,” which is a “euphemism for globalism” that is the basis for the World Trade Organization.  Curtis wrote ”The pandemic showed that the true cost of the China price is very high indeed.   It showed how an economy reliant on global supply chains and just-in-time inventory management is fragile.”

In Chapter VIII, Curtis outlines how to hold China accountable, and Chapter IX describes how to defund China.  In chapter X, Curtis provides common sense on Communist China, and Chapter XI outlines a plan to restore our economic independence.  Chapter XII concludes with a new declaration of independence. 

I don’t want to spoil any of these well thought out prescriptions by providing any quotes from these chapters.  It’s critical that you read these chapters yourself and make your own decision on how you can play a part in saving our country.  I conclude my review with what Maxine wrote as her concluding words in the Foreword: “As I wrote these words, I can hear Curtis saying something he often told me. ‘Each of us has a part to play to stand up for American. You can change the world, one person at a time.’”

I have endeavored to change the world as one person by writing three books and hundreds of blog articles and will continue to do so until the day I die or can’t write or speak any longer. I’m enjoying the greater role I now have the opportunity to play as part of Industry Reimagined 2030 to revitalize American manufacturing to achieve the goals of our vision.  I urge you to take these words of Curtis to heart and do what you can do so our country can become independent from China.