It's the chicken and the egg with these guys: we can't get factories because all the components are made elsewhere, and we can't get the components because we have no factories...
You can't use trade barriers anymore because if you block someone then you're getting blocked too. At the same time you can't let companies choose between local or abroad else those going to dirt-poor countries will have an unfair competitive edge that may bankrupt the ones that stayed, something that already happened 20 years ago.
You know what's the biggest industrial innovation right now? Toyota's new model factory: it's designed to be moved at any time to anywhere in the world, cheap and fast. It has a lower degree of automation than most car factories, why? Because Toyota realized it was easier and cheaper to hire people than to use robots which are still very expensive and need to be reinstalled and reprogrammed each time you move them.
That's the future of manufacturing: if X place is cheaper than our current location then we're moving everything there.
You can't use trade barriers anymore because if you block someone then you're getting blocked too. At the same time you can't let companies choose between local or abroad else those going to dirt-poor countries will have an unfair competitive edge that may bankrupt the ones that stayed, something that already happened 20 years ago.
You know what's the biggest industrial innovation right now? Toyota's new model factory: it's designed to be moved at any time to anywhere in the world, cheap and fast. It has a lower degree of automation than most car factories, why? Because Toyota realized it was easier and cheaper to hire people than to use robots which are still very expensive and need to be reinstalled and reprogrammed each time you move them.
That's the future of manufacturing: if X place is cheaper than our current location then we're moving everything there.