With all the talk of tariffs, I’ve seen more or less this argument:

“Once the tariffs go in place, companies will start manufacturing in the USA and that’s good thing.”

However, when I think about being able to manufacture something like a laptop computer, or a car, these are both operations that require a lot of things:

1. the input components to build the thing
2. skilled labor that can manufacture the thing
3. supply-chains that are in place from initial build all the way to retail

The premise seems to be: “OK, tariffs go in, someone INSTANTLY sets up a company that manufactures X, then USA wins”.

However, for someone to want to take the “bet” on setting up a really expensive factory, they’d have to believe that the tariff will be in place a long time, because if it is NOT… then they have made a terrible investment and the new factory will be instantly non-viable.

Am I crazy? Am I missing something? I understand that it would be great if we had domestic manufacturing but it seems like the people that are behind tariffs think you just snap your fingers and there is a factory cranking out laptops, when in my understanding this is a process that requires a huge amount of money and time.

My thinking is that the amount of people / companies in the USA that have enough capital to start up a manufacturing company like this want to make sure it’s a relatively safe bet before pulling the trigger, and if past tariff behavior from Mr. Trump is any indication, we can’t count on these tariffs being present for a long time.