U.S. President Trump wrote today (Beijing time September 15): "When foreign companies that manufacture extremely complex products, machines and other various 'things' bring substantial investments into the United States, I hope they will bring their professional talents with them, and train our employees in the United States on how to manufacture these unique and complex products during their gradual withdrawal from the United States and return to their home countries. If we do not do this, all these substantial investments will never come - chips, semiconductors, computers, ships, trains, and many other products that we must learn how to make from others, or in many cases need to relearn, because we used to be good at making them, but now we are not. For example, the shipbuilding industry, we used to build one ship a day, but now we can hardly build one a year. I don't want to scare away or discourage foreign investment in the United States. We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say that we will learn from them, and in the near future, do better than them in their own 'game'!"
[Witty] Comment: Trump's remarks are truly too "beautiful" to be real. Trump is desperately hoping that foreign enterprises bring professional talents to the United States, train American workers, and then leave. Isn't this treating foreign enterprises as "suckers"? Helping the U.S. to cultivate competitors, and then being kicked out unfeelingly, would foreign enterprises be so stupid?
American rough treatment of South Korean technical workers has also made foreign enterprises wary. The South Korean media described this incident as "like a military operation," with South Korean technical workers having their wrists, ankles, and waists cuffed, causing strong reactions domestically in South Korea. Even though Trump later provided opportunities for these South Korean workers to stay in the U.S. and train Americans, only one person eventually chose to stay, which is sufficient to illustrate the problem.
Moreover, the labor cost in the U.S. is much higher than in other major manufacturing countries. Even with skilled workers, it is difficult to compete fairly in terms of cost. After years of deindustrialization, the industrial ecosystem in the U.S. has changed significantly. To reindustrialize is no easy task. Trump's remarks are nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy, which cannot solve the deep-seated problems facing American manufacturing, nor can it attract foreign enterprises to genuinely assist in the revival of American manufacturing.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1843279704930311/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.