Summary
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted on CBS’s Face the Nation that US workers won’t reclaim traditional manufacturing jobs under Trump’s tariff-heavy strategy.
While promising “trillions” in new investment, he confirmed that new factories would be automated. Lutnick touted support roles like mechanics and HVAC technicians instead.
Critics cite the tariff policy inconsistency and rising consumer costs.
Market reactions have been severe, with steep losses and fears of trade wars as China and others prepare retaliatory tariffs.
These people are living in a deluded fantasy world. Who’s going to pay for all this automation? The same companies that are going to be losing money hand-over-fist, because no one can afford to buy their products anymore? I have no idea why they think putting the economy in a choke hold is going to stimulate this kind of investment.
And if they think robots would be cheaper than human labor at a time when people are struggling to afford basic necessities, then once again these idiots are proving that they don’t understand anything about basic economics. Or life, for that matter.
As if the countries getting tariff’d don’t know anything about automating factory work. It’s almost as dumb as when we thought nobody else could come up with competitive AI models and the market crashed when DeepSeek was released.
Workers are getting fucked with more inflation so a handful of billionaires get significant tax breaks. There is no secondary objective.
The funny thing about these automated factories is the question, how long it will take to build them and who will build them? How long until the product is done as quickly as cheaply as overseas, without these work robots constantly malfunctioning or needing repairs? There is a reason only certain industries are almost fully automated, it’s simply not efficient to use (fairly expensive) robots for everything. You need a product that sells for a lot of money (like cars) for it to create a profit. But what do I know I’m not a billionaire.
Because they are idiots, there is no mistery, the mediocres are running the USA
I wish it was the mediocre, its being run by the willfully ignorant.
right you are… calling them mediocre is cutting them slack
The only question I’m wondering about:
Is Trump just an idiot or Putin’s useful idiot? How much of this is sheer stupidity and how much is deliberate chaos controlled by a foreign entity?
The fact that Trump put Tariffs on penguins but not Russians feels telling.
… and it goes to show all the pATriOtISm these assholes and their followers actually hold
And the factories that arent fully-automated, will be Asian-style sweatshops, with low pay, no benefits, no unions, teen labor, no health/ safety/ environmental regulations, mandated overtime without OT pay, etc.
Everybody who is excited about the “return of manufacturing” is deluding themselves if they think the new mamufacturing model is going to emulate the model that sent manufacturing overseas in the first place.
That’s just it … I think part of the plan (if you can call it that) is to crater the US economy and send everyone out into the streets with nothing … millionaires and billionaires won’t be affected (or affected that much) … once everyone is poor with no choice, no voice, no ability, no money, then you can restart and rebuild an economy built on sweatshop, low pay, even no pay, no benefits, no unions, teen labor, child labor, no health / safety / environmental regulations, mandated overtime with no OT pay, etc
Why go to Asia to get this? … just bring it all to America. No better model of manufacturing than to do everything at home rather than send out business to the other side of the globe .
Sure, after all, you get to save all that money on shipping from Asia, and all that sweet profit goes directly into their pockets. It might be as much as a 1% increase!
That’s worth destroying America, and the lives of 99% of our population, AND the world economy, for an inconsequential amount of money for people who already have more money than they or their heirs can ever spend.
