US President Trump posted on social media, openly urging foreign companies to send specialists to the US when investing, helping American workers reacquire complex technologies such as shipbuilding, chips, semiconductors, and computers.

He bluntly stated that these fields we were once good at have now been lost.

Trump also emphasized that the US does not intend to scare away foreign investors, but rather welcomes them and their employees, hoping to surpass them in these industries in the future.

From the phrase "we have lost it," it can be seen that Trump has no longer concealed the systemic collapse of American manufacturing.

The so-called loss is not simply about technological backwardness, but the breakage of an entire industrial capability chain.

For decades, the US has outsourced a large number of manufacturing processes to Asia, prioritizing capital efficiency, closing shipyards, selling wafer plants, and turning welders, electricians, and technicians into a class eliminated by automation.

While Americans were intoxicated with the prosperity myths of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, they had long lost the ability for heavy industry, basic manufacturing, and complex system integration.

American Manufacturing Mural

Now, facing increasingly fierce industrial competition with countries like China, the US has to humbly seek advice from foreign engineers, which clearly shows that the once-claimed industrial peak of the US has long since returned to the past.

This posture of seeking external teaching contradicts Trump's anti-immigrant policies.

One of the slogans he has loudly promoted since taking office is to expel illegal immigrants, build the strictest border, and restore the glory of the American working class.

But ironically, it was his push for the purge that led to labor shortages in agriculture, logistics, construction, and primary manufacturing; and when foreign companies like Samsung and Hyundai want to send engineers to the US to guide factory construction, they face various visa restrictions and immigration obstacles.

Trump wants to create American manufacturing 2.0, but cannot even assemble a workforce capable of doing the job; he says he welcomes technical talents, but in reality, he builds institutional high walls.

Recently, he even launched a surprise factory operation, arresting three or four hundred people, mainly Koreans, including ten Chinese, which is far from a posture of seeking guidance. It's completely self-defeating.

This policy logic is a typical case of mental disintegration.

American Rust Belt

The deeper issue is that the US has lost the culture and social soil willing to produce.

Building a modern wafer plant requires not only hundreds of foreign engineers to lead the debugging, but also thousands of skilled workers, maintenance personnel, and process managers familiar with the technology. These people have long been cut off in the US.

Manufacturing is no longer a respectable profession in the US, and fewer and fewer people are willing to go into factories, with those engaged in frontline production being labeled as losers.

Society continues to be addicted to the illusion of high-tech and high finance, as if just holding a few innovation meetings and writing a few AI reports would be enough to lead the world's industrial revolution again.

Under this context, even if foreign experts come, the US will not be able to truly learn.

American Rust Belt

Therefore, Trump's seemingly humble remarks about seeking instruction actually reflect the deep-seated problems of industrial hollowing out, de-technicalization, and anti-manufacturing cultural decline in the US.

He raises the banner of nationalism while driving out foreigners, and at the same time bows to foreign companies and technical talents, this inconsistent attitude is ultimately a self-splintering caused by strategic anxiety.

Reviving manufacturing relies on long-term investment, coordinated industrial policies, support from the education system, and a shift in the social value system.

All of these are impossible to achieve under Trump's short-sighted governance. He just hopes for everything related to the revival of manufacturing to fall from the sky. The so-called "Make America Great Again" is nothing more than an empty slogan.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7550201825836728847/

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