Can Trump bring manufacturing jobs back to America?

On this episode of The Middle, we ask if a re-industrialized America is still possible and, if it is, what that would look like for you. Jeremy is joined by former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and Elisabeth Reynolds, a Professor of the Practice in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus calls from around the country. #industry #manufacturing #jobs #reindustrialize #factoryjobs #Trump #economy 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Toliver, before we get to the show, I have
something to say, which is that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
which as you know, didn't give us any money directly,
but does give money to all the public radio stations,
and that has been completely ended there shutting down in
the next two months. And what is starting to happen
now is that the stations that are a big part
of our fundraising here at the middle that pay us

(00:22):
for the show, they're starting to say, well, we can't
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I am asking you podcast listener if you can, please
make a contribution to us at listen to themiddle dot com.
It is tax deductible, it's with our partnership with Journalism
Funding partners, and it makes a huge difference, and it
will help us deal with some of the discounts that
we're going to have to give to some stations that

(00:42):
are in really dire shape and may go out of business,
and so they're trying to save money everywhere they can.
We are on a shoe string budget as it is,
so your donation in any amount really helps. Please do
it right now at listen Toothemiddle dot com Thank you
so much and enjoy the show. Welcome to the Middle.

(01:04):
I'm Jeremy Hobson along with our house DJ Tolliver and Tolliver,
you are only just a part time DJ for us,
you are also a musician and I want to just
tell our listeners that you are coming out with a
new single this week. And the last one, I believe
was on the season finale of Abbott Elementary, so this
could be I don't know what show will be next,
but you're in manufacturings.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, just for the promo. That's why I'm here, man.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's right. Well, if you look at the bottom of
your laptop, Tolliver, you will see that it was made
in China, so is mine. So we're about seventy percent
of the laptop sold in the United States. And this
week President Trump had an event with Apple CEO Tim
Cook and which Cook promised that Apple would be pledging
another one hundred billion dollars for US manufacturing to try

(01:51):
and bring more production to the United States. That's on
top of five hundred billion already pledged by Apple for
the next few years. Now. I don't know which public
radio volunteers going to be keeping track of whether these
pledges are fulfilled in the end, but they're being made
right now. They're being made a lot of promises from
a lot of companies that don't want to get on
President Trump's bad side. The US manufacturing sector, though used

(02:13):
to account for about twenty percent of GDP, that was
in the nineteen fifties, it is ten percent today, much
lower than countries like China, Japan, Germany, and that is
one of the stated reasons for President Trump's tariffs against
other countries to try and bring manufacturing back to the
United States. So this hour we're going to be asking
if a reindustrialized America is still possible, and if it is,

(02:35):
what it would look like for you. Our phone number
is eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three, or you can
reach out at Listen to the Middle dot com. We're
going to get to that in just a moment. But first,
last week on the show, we asked if crime is
an issue where you live in what you want to
see done about it. Here are some of the calls
that came in on our voicemail after the show.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
This is Mike from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have an
issue about crime. I believe it's up because I've had
my place broken into several times and I've had things
taken out.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Of this house. Well, my name is Calin, I'm from Philadelphia.
Crime is usually due to poverty and mainly lack of
funding for different types of programs. I always get different
notifications of different crimes, and it's usually crimes that involve
a teen or some sort of child, and it just

(03:28):
makes me think like that probably wouldn't have happened if,
say that child is in some sort of after school
club or programs.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
My name is Cody. I'm calling from Lexington, Kentucky police
apartments saying they need more officers. I think in at
least some scenarios they might not need more officers. They
might need different officers.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, thanks to everyone who called in, and you can
hear that entire episode on our podcast in partnership with
iHeart Podcasts, on the iHeart app or wherever you listen
to podcasts. So now to our topic this hour is
a re industrialized America filled with factories and well paying
manufacturing jobs still possible. And what would it look like
for you, Tolliver? How can people reach us?

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, you can call us at eight four four four
Middle that's eight four four four sixty four three three
five three, or you can write to us I'll go slow.
Listen to the Middle dot com. And you can also
comment on our live stream on YouTube. I'm checking them all,
so please get those comments in.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
You guys joining me, this our former Congressman Tim Ryan
of Ohio. Congressman, welcome back to the Middle.

Speaker 6 (04:33):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
And Elizabeth Reynolds is joining us as well, professor of
the practice in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning,
an expert on manufacturing and industrial strategy. Elizabeth, welcome to
you as well.

Speaker 7 (04:45):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
And before we get to the phones, Tim Ryan, you
are a Democrat, not on the same page politically as
the president, But what do you think about his goal
of re industrializing America and his methods of trying to
accomplish that goal.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
Well, I think it's a great goal.

Speaker 8 (05:01):
I mean, I think it's you know, very much aligned
with the goal of the Biden administration.

Speaker 6 (05:07):
That they had about, you know, how do we reindustrialize.

Speaker 8 (05:10):
How do we you know, kind of have an understanding
that we're going to have to let go of some
of those low value jobs.

Speaker 6 (05:18):
We just can't can't keep up with those.

Speaker 8 (05:20):
But we should have an industrial policy in the United
States that you know, tries to drive investment into the
United States for the chip manufacturing, for the electric vehicles,
the batteries, the high end stuff.

Speaker 6 (05:34):
We should be doing that here in the United States.
So I agree with the goal.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
I think it may end there, not the methods.

Speaker 6 (05:43):
Not the methods.

Speaker 8 (05:44):
I mean, you know, you talk about you know, one
thing business is like is stability, and this has been
one of the most.

Speaker 6 (05:51):
Unstable and unstable.

Speaker 8 (05:55):
Presidencies we've seen since Liberation Day, probably before.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
That until now. Tariffs on, tariffs off.

Speaker 8 (06:03):
You know, how do you you know, win projects dismantled,
not permitted, whatever, and then they're back online.

Speaker 6 (06:11):
How do you.

Speaker 8 (06:11):
Possibly as a CEO board of directors plan to reindustrialize
the United States if you don't even know what the
day to day you know, regimes are going to be
tax regimes, regulatory regimes. So I think in that regard,
you know, again, I think it's typical Trump too. He
gets the top line stuff very very well. He very

(06:31):
gets that intuitively. Manufacturing, immigration, go down the line.

Speaker 6 (06:35):
You know, government's.

Speaker 8 (06:36):
Broken, government, reform, whatever, then you build it onion back
one level, and you know you're into pure chaos.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Elizabeth Reynolds, what do you think about the goal and
and why should the United States be a country that
makes things rather than just designing and programming them like
we do at this point with things like iPhones and laptops.

Speaker 7 (06:59):
Well, I certainly agree with the goal, and I agree
as well. We've had multiple administrations now who have all
acknowledged that we really need to be reinvesting in our
industrial base. And that's not only because it's the heart
of our industrial systems, whether it's energy, transportation, materials, but
it's also the gateway into the frontier technologies, whether it's

(07:21):
in biotech, quantum, all of the things we've been you know,
we're focused on, and we're focused on, particularly in terms
of resiliency in our supply chains, investing in those semiconductors,
investing in critical minerals. Now, with the geopolitics going on,
we need to really reinvest in this industrial base. So
it's really it's a critical piece. It's not enough. We've

(07:42):
done now decades of design it here, make it there,
and it's left us incredibly vulnerable. I mean, look at
what happened during the pandemic. We didn't have ppe, we
didn't have semiconductors'.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's one of the things that the Trump administration has
been saying is that it's an actual national security issue.
We've got to be making things like cars, ships, and
airplanes and computers in the United States. Do you agree
with that, Elizabeth?

Speaker 9 (08:03):
I agree.

Speaker 7 (08:04):
I think it's a national and economic security issue. We
recall when the semiconductor chips were you know, weren't available
because they're mostly made in Taiwan by one company, we
had inflation jump up by a third. I mean, this
is an economic problem for the country as well. So
it is I think that's true, which requires a strategic

(08:25):
approach to it. So I would agree with the congressman.
Broad based tariffs across you know, all goods with allies
and partners is not the way to.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Do this, not targeted. And what about the other thing
that people would say a strong manufacturing base would bring,
which is a stronger middle class. Congressman, when you look
back at the last time there was kind of a
golden age in manufacturing the United States, it also coincided
with a golden age of unions, which brought up the
wages and people were able to work in factory union

(08:55):
factories and get good paying jobs. Now, a lot of
the companies that want to maybe build cars in the US,
we'll go to a right to work state like Alabama
or South Carolina. And maybe, I mean, does a manufacturing
job necessarily mean a good paying middle class job.

Speaker 6 (09:11):
Well, it can, and I think in some ways it does. Now.
I mean, I come from an area of the country in.

Speaker 8 (09:18):
Northeast Ohio that it was literally a Bruce Springsteen song.
I mean, there's a song called Youngstown, you know, right,
and so you know the Bruce Springsteen's and Billy Joels
who wrote about this stuff. Like I was born in
nineteen seventy three, you know, and so I watched this
whole thing on unravel and it started to you know,

(09:42):
the Southern states the right to work states.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
Then it went to Mexico, you know, especially after NAFTA.

Speaker 8 (09:48):
We literally had factories close here and move over the
border into the Mkiladoras and ship the product back. We
had our workers actually go to have to go down
there and train the workers who are going to take
their jobs. So that that's why the trade issue and
the unfairness issue is still in the DNA of a
lot of Americans, especially in these kind of industrial states,

(10:09):
whether you're in the Midwest, even the textiles down the
you know, down the Atlantic Sea board, even to some
extent manufacturing and steel.

Speaker 6 (10:17):
In the South in some of those areas in Alabama,
for example.

Speaker 8 (10:21):
So the idea of bringing these jobs back is a good.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
One, and I think a noble one and one we
need to have. And I'll give you one example.

Speaker 8 (10:31):
So there's a battery plant that opened up in Mortstown, Ohio.
Now this is all perspective, right, So we had a
General Motors plant that had sixteen thousand workers.

Speaker 6 (10:40):
They're all United Auto Workers.

Speaker 8 (10:42):
We had a Delphi plant that supplied that plant that
had twelve or thirteen thousand workers there. They were all
IUE CWA, but all Union. So you're talking just right there,
thirty thousand good paying auto worker jobs in the seven
late sixties, seventies into the eighties.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
These factories are closed and there's a battery plant there.

Speaker 8 (11:03):
The battery plant now is a partnership with with General
Motors and I think LGKM. There's about two thousand auto
workers there. They're making about thirty thirty five bucks an
hour pretty.

Speaker 6 (11:14):
Good wage these days, and manufacturing, so can you get
these jobs back?

Speaker 8 (11:19):
Yes, And I think the Biden administration, you know, and
I've had some criticisms of the administration, but the thing
they got absolutely right is the reindustrialization.

Speaker 6 (11:30):
Policies that they put forward, and that's why that factory
is there.

Speaker 8 (11:33):
And then also being pro union, it's a unionized shop.
So but the problem is there's only two thousand of
them there. So you really need an industrial policy to
help grow this because that is as excited as everyone
is to have that there, It's not thirty thousand, it's two.

(11:54):
And so we've got to get the work on this
because you know, the middle class is gone.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
I want to ask Elizabeth just after this break about
AI and whether even trying to bring back manufacturing jobs
you can outrun the technology. But Taliver, there was, of
course the industrial revolution back of the eighteen hundreds with
the rise of machines. There was another peak for industry
in the US after World War Two.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, big time for American steel production was in the
nineteen fifties. Here's a clip from an educational film commissioned
by the AFLCIO in nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 10 (12:29):
It is the steel worker, trained and highly skilled, who
is responsible for the doing In the blooming mill, steel
ingotts begin the shaping that will later turn them into
the thousands of things of steel that surround us everywhere.
As the rougher and his assistants guide the blooms of
steel through the rollers, making them longer and thinner, eventually

(12:50):
giving them useful shapes. Think of what their work and
the work of the men they have followed, has meant
to our country.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
By the way, the US is now the fourth largest
deal producer in the world, with number one China's share
expanding rapidly over the last couple of decades.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
I feel like I keep hearing this about so many industries.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yes, yeah, but that one big time. The chart is
pretty stunning. We'll be back with more of the middle.
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning,
in the Middle is a national call in show. We're
focused on elevating voices from the geographically, politically, and philosophically,
or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
This hour, we're asking if a re industrialized America is

(13:32):
still possible, and if it is, what it would look
like for you tolliver. What is the number to call it?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four sixty four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on all social media.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
I'm joined by Elizabeth Reynolds, professor of the practice in
the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and former
Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan. The phone lines are lighting up
before we get to them. Elizabeth Reynolds, I just want
to ask you, do you think that even with all
the right policy, we can outrun the technology right now
that may be able to do the job better and
cheaper than a person.

Speaker 7 (14:07):
Well, you know that question has been a perennial question
through every wave of new technology. You know, it was
a few years ago as the robots are coming, They're
going to take all our jobs. Turned out not to
be the case. And I think that the jury is
out with AI in terms of its impact. But in
the end, our challenge in the US and manufacturing, we
have two major challenges. One is that we're not adopting

(14:29):
enough technology to actually compete in those industries that Congressman
Ryan was talking about and bring that you know, a
lot of this manufacturing to bear and secondly, we don't
have enough workers, and so can we find a way
to use the technology to both you know, help us
with a worker shortage and augment our workers so that
they're more productive. And we're using more technology, you know,

(14:52):
to help advance productivity, quality, yield, safety, all of those things.
So I actually think AI is going to be a
benefit to our manufacturing goals. And you know, we have
to as always, we have to be thinking about investing
in our workers as well and thinking about ways in
which we support them through technological transitions like this.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Let's get to the phones. Brad is calling from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. Brad,
your thoughts on whether American can be reindustrialized.

Speaker 11 (15:23):
No, I really don't think so. I've been involved with
manufacturing for twenty years. I work for major machine tool builders.
At this point, they're all out of business. There's no
base to build machinery the experts like myself and service
and engineering and design. I'm the last one left of
my company that went out of business twenty years ago.

(15:44):
Nobody is coming up to replace us. And everywhere I
go I see signs looking for people they want machine designers,
they want machine programmers, they want machine operators. You're going
to need thousands of people that are just not in
arrested in those positions. And there's no companies that can
build the required machinery because they've all been sold off

(16:07):
for pieces.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
As somebody Brad as somebody Brad who's been in the
business for as you said, twenty years in manufacturing. Do
you see a solution. Do you see a way to
bring manufacturing back to the United States in a big way?

Speaker 11 (16:25):
No, because everything's coming from overseas now. The castings, the computers,
the bearings, the screws, all the components to build machines
have to come from overseas. But Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese,
there's no way you can import the volume that's needed.
And they can just say no, they'll embargo this stuff
and they'll you know, they can easily put a stomp

(16:47):
on it. And the tariffs have made service prices go
through the roof in the past year. Brad part yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, thank you appreciate it. Congressman and Ryan, what do
you sort of a down note from Brad, But somebody
who's been in the industry for a long time.

Speaker 8 (17:07):
Yeah, I know a lot of guys like Brad who
feel the same way, you know, twenty years ago, twenty
five years ago. I guess when I started in politics,
I would tour those facilities, you know, mom and pop
tool and die manufacturing shops and all that, and again
watch that unravel as well. I do think it would take,

(17:29):
you know, a continuation of an industrial policy. I think
in the last few years we kind of got the
top line stuff right and the chip manufacturing stuff right,
but we've got to get into supply chains. We've got
to get into how we regrow these industries. And again
getting back to maybe your first questions, like this is
where I really disagree with Trump because it's really the

(17:53):
culture now is oh, Trump will put a terrify and
everything will be okay. Well that's just ridiculous. You know,
That's not how it's going to work. It needs to
be a policy. You know, as Liz knows because she's
worked on this. How do we start with our kids
in schools grip K through twelve, starting getting them prepared

(18:14):
for jobs.

Speaker 6 (18:15):
In these areas.

Speaker 8 (18:16):
How do we have you know, creative and imaginative public
private partnerships and programs you know, like the Manufacturing Extension
Program of something like that, where you're.

Speaker 6 (18:27):
Actually helping regrow some of these industries. There are still
some companies around there's there's not a.

Speaker 8 (18:34):
Lot, We've lost a lot, But how do we help
those companies grow and expand and tax incentives and development.

Speaker 6 (18:41):
And work all that stuff?

Speaker 8 (18:43):
Like I bet, I bet Liz probably has a plan
she could hold up and say here's how we would
do it.

Speaker 6 (18:47):
So I'll let you. I'll let you go to live
on that.

Speaker 8 (18:49):
But but from my advantage point, you need the political
will and the political leadership that's going to roll up
their sleeves and do it, and and bring government together
to actually work different age andcies and all the rest
tax and CentOS and all investments and private sector needs
to be a part of that as well.

Speaker 6 (19:07):
And then get the political will do it.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
But you got to have a plan well, and I'm
sure we're going to get to Liz's plan in this hour.
Let me first though, go to Barbara to.

Speaker 6 (19:17):
Debate Jeremy and Liz.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
But you guys agree on a lot of things. This
is okay. Barbara is calling from Pueblo, Colorado. Barbara, your thoughts,
So I'm kind of on.

Speaker 9 (19:31):
The fence with this. My books are Yes, if we're
bringing jobs that are in Europe, or in Canada, or
in Australia, or in any of the countries that have
a standard living commensurate to ours, yes, that's probably a
good thing for us. If we're bringing jobs from countries
where they are paying their workers pennies on the dollar

(19:55):
to make goods for us, and we're bringing those industries
back to the US, and our people are going to
want to have decent living wages, and then the costs
of all those items are going to go skyrocketing in
the stores to us. So that's my thought.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, so the wages, Yeah, the wages in the US
compared to other countries. Your thoughts on that, Liz.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
Oh, Let me just say, Barbara, I completely agree, and
every economist would agree with you, that we aren't going
to compete on low value added, low cost products. You know,
the toys and the sneakers are not something that we
can afford to make in the US because we pay
better wages and we want to have more quality jobs

(20:43):
for workers in manufacturing. But having said that, I want
to also be clear, like when we talk about bringing
it back, you know, we're actually building in a different way.
We're not going to the way you make semiconductors in
China is not how we're going to make them in
the US. And what our secret sauces is our innovation
and our technological capabilities.

Speaker 6 (21:01):
So we are.

Speaker 7 (21:02):
Doing things in a different way, and in many of
these areas we can actually leap frog today's technology and
do it better and more efficiently and more you know,
and again higher quality paid jobs.

Speaker 6 (21:13):
That's the goal.

Speaker 7 (21:14):
And I think that right now, what this tariff uh strategy, well,
I won't call it a strategy, but the tariff trade
war we're involved in now makes no distinction between any
of this. It just slaps a bunch of you know,
high tariffs on you know, friends and foes alike, and
it hurts the two hundred and fifty thousand manufacturers we

(21:36):
have in the country, most of them small and medium size,
who have to import some of these you know parts,
whether it's screws or semiconductors. They're importing them and their
costs are going up. So that to me is, you know,
we've had a lot of tailwinds I think behind the
reindustrialization effort, and now we've this is a headwind.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
And by the way, the effective average terrify This is
from today in the Wall Street Journal on all imported
goods now stands at roughly eighteen percent versus two point
three percent last year. That's the highest level since the
nineteen thirties. That's is according to the Wall Street Journal. Tolliver,
what's coming in online at this point?

Speaker 2 (22:16):
So much? Marie in Sherborne, Massachusetts says, I think the
goal of bringing jobs, including manufacturing jobs, back to the
US is a good idea, a good goal. I think
the way we're going about it doesn't really exist. I'm
not sure what that means. Keenan and Leyton, Utah says
we can and should. I think it's important to be
specific about the kinds of manufacturing that we want. We
do not want to make spatulas. We want to make

(22:37):
computer chips. We want to make solar panels. You want
to build green energy, I want to make spatulists. Personally,
and add to this, Okay, let's in with yea goo
for yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I will go for Hunter is Hunter? Well, let me
go to Hunter. We've got a delay between you and
me today, Taliver. Hunter is in Columbia, South Carolina, Hunter,
go ahead with your thoughts.

Speaker 12 (23:02):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm growing up here in Columbia,
South Carolina all my life, and this seems to be
the state seems to be a haven for manufacturing. You know,
I go to school in the upstate. Currently I work
in a pharmacy, but I'm having friends who are, you know,
from a young age able to generate a pretty significant

(23:23):
income for someone our age in the manufacturing sector. I mean,
whether that be you know, tires or in the vehicle industry.
You know, there's not a ton of manufacturing. It's mostly
around Columbia. It's it's automobile related. So I guess my
question would be, I mean, how much how much planning
are we putting? I guess, especially with President Trump being

(23:44):
in power, is this manufacturing kind of revolution? I mean,
is it going to be you know, the good all South,
you know, right to work state kind of be kind
of way, or you know, I guess that's the way
Trump would have it, but or someone else going to
be kind of leading this charge.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
You I'm going to take that question to the congressman.
But let me just ask you this Hunter, just before
you let you go. It sounds like you're pretty young,
and You've got a lot of young friends who are
getting into this industry. Do they feel like this is
the career that they want, that this is going to
give them the good paying jobs for the rest of
their life that they're interested in.

Speaker 12 (24:22):
Absolutely, I would think. So it looks like we've got friends,
you know, I've got friends who are looking at making
six figure salaries within maybe three years of their high
school graduation, at least in my case. Wow, you know,
for me, I mean, I'm looking at maybe another six
years of school before I can even touch those numbers. So,
I mean, it's definitely it's it's making people.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Think, Yeah, very interesting, Hunter, thank you very much for that.
Congressman ran your thoughts on that, and he brought up
the right to work issue. I mean, you are apparently
considering a run for governor of Ohio. Is it right
to work state?

Speaker 6 (24:59):
OHI no, no, they try.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
So are you worried about these jobs going to places
like South Carolina? If they if they come?

Speaker 8 (25:09):
I mean, it's it's always a concern for those of
us who are in the North or in the Midwest,
that's always a concern in the in the competition for
our state economic development offices to have to compete with that. Fortunately,
there's other aspects of growth and investment that that companies
make supply chain, energy costs, workforce, skilled development, skills, you know,

(25:35):
those kind.

Speaker 6 (25:36):
Of things, and I think we can compete.

Speaker 8 (25:38):
On a lot of those areas, some of the high
end manufacturing, especially in energy. You look at natural gas,
you look at nuclear, you know, new nuclear. Hopefully you
really do need a skilled and trained workforce.

Speaker 6 (25:53):
And I think the unions are selling their labor.

Speaker 8 (25:57):
To some pretty high end folks, and you're seeing the
respect and approval ratings for unions shoot through the roof.

Speaker 6 (26:06):
I think it's because of the economic anxiety.

Speaker 8 (26:09):
When I started in Congress, I was considered like I'm
a knuckle dragger because I'm like with the unions, you know,
And I think there was like maybe twenty percent approval
maybe for the unions.

Speaker 13 (26:20):
When I left Congress, it was about sixty five plus
percent supported unions. So I think this is saying they
want the skills, and they especially in the building and
construction trades where they're seeing super high skill levels, and
they don't want to they don't want, you know, time delays,
they don't want problems with the product they want to

(26:42):
be able to.

Speaker 8 (26:42):
So I think there's an opportunity again uaw a contract
the battery plan because those auto workers know they're very sophisticated.
Now they've been through the ringer. If you're still an
auto worker today, you know what the hell you're doing.
They have some of that legacy talent that the previous
caller talked about.

Speaker 6 (27:00):
So I think there's an opportunity. But what you want
to do is you want to create an.

Speaker 8 (27:04):
Environment in the United States to focus on these high ends.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
And I just want to real quickly touch Jeremy on
what Liz said. I think it's so important that we see.

Speaker 8 (27:14):
Things like AI and not bury our head in the
sand and be afraid. We have to embrace these technologies
the blockchain AI like and say how do we help
this help this one worker really expand productivity for the company.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
But that worker better have the skills necessary.

Speaker 8 (27:32):
So what are our governors what are talking about as
our as skills development K through twelve? Because are they
prepared to step into a manufacturing job at eighteen years
old and think about the trajectory of that kid's life,
no student debt and within three years by the time
they're twenty one by the time they can have a drink.
Legally they're making one hundred grand, which is making one

(27:53):
hundred grand twenty one is a good reason.

Speaker 6 (27:56):
To go have a drink.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
I mean, Liz, that I was so interesting to hear
from that caller say that, you know, their friends are
getting jobs in the six figures just right out of
high school or within a few years. What about that?
In the training aspect of what we're talking about here,
it's been mentioned for years by both parties. We've got
to train people for these jobs of the future, and
we've got to get people into trade schools and community

(28:20):
colleges and things like that. Is it happening now at
that rate that it should be.

Speaker 7 (28:24):
I mean, I'm so glad Hunter called in because actually
one of the premier places that we have apprenticeship programs
is in South Carolina. They have really developed this incredible
pipeline that goes from the high school, community college into
you know, BMW and other employers down there, and it's
it's a real model. So we have great models of

(28:46):
how to do this, we don't have them at scale yet.
And I think that the Biden administration, the Trump administration
is continuing a focus on apprenticeship is a model that
really works. What we see now and this is some
work and MIT has been working doing about how do
we combine the skills you get from a vocational training

(29:06):
with some of the skills you get as an engineer,
and how do we put those together, because that's the
kind of skills you need now in the manufacturing space.
This is advanced technology, and the next generation actually is
really comfortable with a technology, interested in working with it,
and that I think is a virtuous cycle. If we
can get them involved in that, then we bring the skills,

(29:28):
and we also bring new technology into the firms because
they when you invest in new technology, you invest in
your workers, et cetera. So I think that we do
have great models for how to do this, we don't
have it at scale yet. The other thing I do
a shout out is to the Department of Defense. They
have been working for over a decade on workforce issues

(29:48):
because they have been aware of this shortage of manufacturing.
Right it's in submarines, it's in all sorts of areas
of our defense area. So there's a lot of they've
been investing in a lot of programs and technolo, you know,
partnerships that we can we can learn from, but it's
it is a key challenge is how do we get
the next generation? How do we keep this generation in

(30:09):
as long as we can because as we heard earlier on,
you know, we've got an aging workforce and we're losing
a lot of people. How do we bring the next
generation in? And I think that there we're competing against.
You know, if you've got Amazon paying twenty five dollars
an hour, you better be meeting that.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
No, uh, stand by. I want to just remind our
listen as you can call us at eight four four
four middle that's eight four four four six four three
three five three or reach out it listen to themiddle
dot com. You know, Tulliver American manufacturing actually peaked in
terms of raw jobs numbers in nineteen seventy nine. It
has been declining that number ever since.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, and during the eighties it was pretty hard to
follow the news without hearing about a factory closing down.
Listen to this clip from a nineteen eighty three WMC
Action news report in Memphis, Tennessee.

Speaker 10 (30:57):
One of Memphis' oldest and most important manufacturing plants is
shutting down.

Speaker 14 (31:02):
International Harvester announced today it will close its Memphis plan
on May the first. Harvester says the decision is final.
There is no chance of the city making another effort
to save the thirty six year old plant. International Harvester
says it has lost so much money in its agricultural
equipment division it must close the Memphis plant. Mayor Hackett
was one of the first to learn of Harvester's decision. Today.

(31:25):
After meeting with IH officials, he held a news conference
at City Hall.

Speaker 10 (31:29):
Agribusiness is so poor in this country and that they
could survive no longer.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
By the way, after a number of acquisitions over the years,
what's left of International Harvester is now part of the
German company Volkswagen oh Guten Tag. We'll be back with
more of your calls on the Middle. This is the Middle.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this hour, we're asking if a
re industrialized America is still possible and what it would
mean for you. You can call us at eight four

(31:57):
four four Middle that's eight four four four six four
three three five five three, or you can reach out
at Listen to the Middle dot com. I'm joined by
former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and Elizabeth Reynolds, a professor
of the practice in them I t Department of Urban
Studies and Planning, and a lot of calls on the line.
Let's go to Mark, who's in Houston, Texas. Mark, go
ahead with your thoughts.

Speaker 15 (32:18):
Hi, thanks for taking my call. I don't think this
the industrialization will happen unless you can get somehow the stockholders,
the people who are just really focused on the profit
of a company, to to sacrifice some of those profits

(32:42):
in order in order to turn around the manufacturing and
business in this in this country, These people, the people
who are invested in profit, don't well undermine some of
our efforts because they want us to. They want these
their companies to go ahead and find the cheapest labor,

(33:04):
find the cheapest good, find the cheapest way. And that's
probably going to be for the most part outside of
the United States. And so unless you can incentivize them,
key not look for the greatest profit. I don't know
how you look all. I think all of our efforts
will be undermined by a coalition of stockholders CEOs, anyone

(33:29):
who has an interest in seeing a company make a profit.
I just I don't know how it's going to happen,
because there's got to be some incentive for them to
give up on that.

Speaker 6 (33:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, Mark, we've got it there. Thank you very much
for that. Congressman. What do you think corporate greeds stand
in the way of manufacturing jobs coming back to the
United States when they could be cheaper in other countries.

Speaker 8 (33:52):
Well, I think I think there's there is the drive
for quarterly profits and that's it, you know, that's the
incentive that are just them. And like many things in
our system that are.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
Broken today, many of our systems are broken.

Speaker 8 (34:04):
Today, it's because the incentives are all messed up. It's
the same, it's the same, it's almost the same. And
I thought about this lot in Congress. We had to
run every two years. So you get elected in November,
you get sworn in in January, and you start fundraising,
you know, for the next election cycle, and.

Speaker 6 (34:24):
You may have a primary in a year.

Speaker 8 (34:26):
Uh, you know, in a year and a half after that,
you're you're basically in another general election. And so no
one's looking at the long term in the United States
political system.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
And then you look at the business.

Speaker 8 (34:41):
System, where it's all about the quarterly profits. Like businesses
aren't looking necessarily towards the long term. They want the
returns and they want them now.

Speaker 6 (34:50):
And what we're talking about with Liz is written about
and you know what work I think need.

Speaker 8 (34:55):
The direction we need to go in is that this
is a long term strategy that's going to take an
integrated approach on all levels of government, state, federal, local
school districts, the community, colleges, the whole nine yards, with
the private sector, and that that's going to take a
long time to create, like that long term strategy to

(35:17):
build it, you know, build the interstate highway or go
to the moon or like these big things that we've
really done have been very very integrated public private sector.
And so I think he's absolutely right. I'm not quite
sure how exactly we do that, but you know, having
some component of tax incentives and taking care of your

(35:39):
workers and investing in long term and you know, again,
we would have to sit down with a bunch of
really smart folks like lives and economists.

Speaker 6 (35:47):
Across the board to figure out how to put.

Speaker 8 (35:48):
That together and have a little more of a long
term strategy real quick. Like I think in some of
these countries, a little downturn now, but in like Germany,
they would keep their workers, you know, during a downturn,
and they would educate them and train them up when
things came back in the upturn, and that would be
paid for by the government. So things like that that
just kind of get looking a little more long term.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
Well, and speaking of long term, of course, President Biden
when he was in office, one of his big strategies
was clean energy investments, and it seems like as Trump
has come in a lot of those investments are being
taken away. So if that was a long term plan,
it's now going to another long term plan that's completely different.
Let's go to Chris in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Chris, go

(36:31):
ahead with your thoughts as a reindustrient in America is
still possible? Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 16 (36:35):
Hi, I'm a engineer of forty three years and one
of your guests keeps talking about unions and that is
not the way to go to get American EV versus
the Chinese EV. It's all labor that cost and you
know that's not going to go. Second thing is, I

(36:58):
don't know if you can talk can kids to go
into in tangiineering. If you look at the grad schools
in America all it's all foreign students, and you know,
so you're gonna have to You're going to have to
talk people into you know, doing this. I don't know
how you do that. Maybe if you have better stem education.

(37:21):
And then finally, I think you're going to have to
open up, you know, some of these visas so we
can import some of this talent. You know, Trump shutting
the door on all that. But you know, if you're
going to reindustrialize, you're going to need some sharp and
you know, sharp people, right And unfortunately, right now, those

(37:43):
people are coming from other countries. They are coming from
you know, India and Asia, and I suppose India is
part of Asia, but they're coming from other places.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, I want to I want to get Elizabeth Reynolds's
thoughts on that, Chris, But let me just ask you
real quick. You said you were an engineer for forty
three years. Why did you get into it in the
first place.

Speaker 16 (38:03):
Because I love it. It's the greatest thing in the world.
I love making things. I love you know, creating them
from nothing. I love it. I love it. It's the
greatest thing in the world. But it's really hard to
get into it. A lot of people are daunted by,
you know, taking some of the mask and you know,

(38:24):
it's not programming a cell phone. You know that.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
No, and my my ds in my ds in chemistry
and physics were the things that made me.

Speaker 6 (38:32):
Not do that.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
But thank you for the call, Chris, Elizabeth Reynolds. What
what do you think about about that, that that so
much of the talent has to be important even if
you do have the jobs here in the United States.

Speaker 7 (38:45):
Well, certainly that has been the case that we are
you know, we've had a decline in our engineering graduate
school level or undergrads and graduates to date, so we
have to think about ways in which we are going
to build out that skill base and that capacity, and
that is an incentive system. I think there's you know
that is about how to how to bring students in,

(39:06):
show them early on, as Chris was saying, how interesting
this is, put them on paths that that bring kind
of engineering and I'd say, just you know, shop floor
skills back into the into the classroom. But we also
need to rely on and we always, i think always
will have some need for international talent that is both

(39:29):
a sharing of ideas and knowledge and skills, but it's
also about building out where we you know, we certainly
aren't going to have all the engineers I think we
need just homegrown. So we have to find a way
that we keep those visas available. And also we've had
some success, a lot of success when you let students,

(39:51):
foreign students stay in the country and continue to work here.
I mean, the percentage of our startups that have been
started by students who are from other countries is enormous.
That is part of our startup culture.

Speaker 9 (40:04):
We have to remember that.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Dre go ahead, Congress.

Speaker 8 (40:08):
I just want to weigh in here because it's what
the frustrating part is. I think our our K through
twelve system is just so antiquated, like it's not any fun.

Speaker 6 (40:20):
For kids to go to school. And really, I mean
the good Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 8 (40:23):
I'm sure there's some good schools that that kids enjoy
going to, but for the most part, they're they're old buildings,
they're they're hot, and you know, as.

Speaker 6 (40:32):
We move to summer and go back in the fall,
they're cold in the winter. You know, the kids are
the poor.

Speaker 8 (40:39):
Don't don't underestimate the poverty issue in this country, where
over fifty percent of kids.

Speaker 6 (40:45):
That go to public school live in poverty. I mean,
we're talking about.

Speaker 8 (40:48):
A lot of social challenges that come to a head
in our in our public schools, and so we have
to reimagine how we do schools today.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
And because we want.

Speaker 8 (40:58):
Kids to be excited about exploring, you know, the stem
or the steam, and a lot of kids get their
different ways, and we cut a lot of those programs,
especially in our poorer districts, whether the extracurricular activities, the
summer programming, you know, the kind of stuff that the

(41:20):
cool technology, all of that stuff like they don't have it.
You know, it's pay to play for sports and all
of that. We all know what's happening here. And so
until we make in that and let me be very
clear too, this isn't just about throwing money at the
problem either, because we've tried that sometimes and that doesn't
necessarily work. But again, it's about a comprehensive approach. How

(41:40):
are we going to reimagine educating our kids their in trauma.
Their brain their prefrontal cortexes aren't functioning because they're in trauma.
So they're in fight or flight mode, which cuts off
your prefrontal cortex, their diets aren't great, they're not eating
very good food, and so I just throw that out
there to say, like we can have or you can't

(42:01):
really have a discussion about how we're going to move
kids upward and have upward mobility and getting them skills
without dealing with all of these other problems. And it's
not just throwing money at it, and it's not just
creating broccer programs for our schools. There's got to be
a public desire for us to join hands and figure
this out, because if not, we're not going to rebuild

(42:24):
the middle class, and there won't be people that can
go and we're going to have immigration problems and these
jobs are going to go on shore.

Speaker 6 (42:29):
That's the end result, and then everybody's going to be
hurt by it.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Let's go to Michelle, who's in Saint Louis. Michelle, welcome
to the middle go ahead.

Speaker 17 (42:37):
Yes, great, Thank you for taking my call. One thing
I'm not sure people are thinking about is when you
have manufacturing here in this country, or you're bringing back manufacturing,
there's a lot of pollution associated with that. I don't
mean to sound cold, but there's a lot of pollution
that's happening out there that we don't have.

Speaker 16 (42:58):
Now.

Speaker 17 (42:59):
Things are being built overseas and they come here, the
pollution stays there. So a lot of people are not
seeing that. And then with Trump rolling back environmental regulations,
what is that going to do for us, you know,
pollution wise.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
So, yeah, that's a great question to.

Speaker 17 (43:13):
Put that out there for people to talk about.

Speaker 10 (43:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
And by the way, I haven't been able to see
the sun clearly in days because of these fires in Canada.
Not that that's because of industry, but Liz Reynolds, what
about the pollution aspect of the environmental aspect of having
more manufacturing here closer to home.

Speaker 7 (43:30):
Well, of course, historically we have you know, some good
regulation in this country that has mitigated pollution, uh and
the effects of pollution from industry and and have been
aggressive about it and had made a lot of you know,
a lot of progress on that front. The case is

(43:50):
when you go to other countries, I mean, there's a
reason why we haven't had a lot of mining done
in this country and it's been done elsewhere because they're
labor rules and their environmentalis are not things that we
can we would support in this country. I think that
the opportunity here is for us to actually do modern
advanced manufacturing in an industry with those environmental concerns in place,

(44:16):
with a lot of the technology that can actually improve
on the pollution that we see from these and we've
had a huge amount of effort and industrial decarbonization going
on that's been quite successful. So my feeling is without
those regulations, we're in trouble. And the Trump administration has
been attacking a lot of them, but really advanced manufacturing,

(44:38):
the kind of manufacturing we want to do here is
one that is going to be sensitive, I think to
pollution and all of these companies right now we have
such a concern around energy security. Right we are going
to the demand for energy is really high, and so
companies are trying to figure out how to reduce their
energy costs, how to reduce their waste, how to in
many cases decarbonize. So you know, those trends are hopeful.

(45:03):
I think recent regulation are problematic.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
And how to I guess restart nuclear plants where meltdowns occurred.
They're literally going to do that, I think three mile
islands so that they can power like AI so that
we can all you know, watch baby videos of Judge
Judy and stuff like that. Let's Ben is calling from Casper, Wyoming. Ben,
go ahead with your thoughts.

Speaker 18 (45:28):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 6 (45:31):
I'm just calling in.

Speaker 18 (45:32):
I agree that we need to bring manufacturing back to
the US. I think COVID showed us how kind of
fragile our supply lines are. I think tariffs are the
wrong way to go about it, though it would be
the right way.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Pardon what would be the right way. If tariffs are
the wrong way to get the manufacturing jobs.

Speaker 18 (45:53):
Back, I think the right way would be positive incentives.
Terariffs are kind of a negative incentive. It's it's teaching
a kid not to cry by hitting the kid. What
we need to do is give tax incentives, grants, land
incentives to bring that manufacturing back, and once that manufacturing's developed,

(46:16):
then we can start recouping that not only in you know,
increase GDT creating those jobs, but down the road slowly
increase in taxes on those corporations now that they're here.
Instead of meeting them with the stick and saying, hey,
come back. If you don't, we're just gonna get madder
at you, give them kind of a speedheart deal to

(46:38):
come in, build up that relationship over time to a
point where it's beneficial for both the government, communities and
the companies. And then start recouping your money through through
taxes through you know, taxes you get through income tax,
employment taxes, and grow that way, grow a healthy way.

(46:59):
It's not traumatizing.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Companies for the ben Thank you for that, Congressman. I
imagine you agree with that tariffs are the wrong way,
but that maybe Well let's let's ask you this. If
you become the governor of Ohio, how would you incentivize
a company to come and build in Ohio.

Speaker 19 (47:18):
Well, I think the Chips Act, which Liz knows all
about that, that was basically a national incentive to help
these companies.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
Relocate here and build out here.

Speaker 8 (47:32):
You know, you hate the race to the bottom where
states are really competing against each other and giving away
the tax base.

Speaker 6 (47:39):
But I think a lot of it's going to have
to do. You know, in Ohio, we got water, we
got energy. Those will be big incentives. Is workforce.

Speaker 8 (47:47):
You know, like if you have universities that can do
the research, which we do here in pretty good numbers,
and you've got the workforce, it I think it becomes
a magnet for all of the kind of things that
we talked to about today, or we don't have the workers,
and you know.

Speaker 6 (48:02):
How are we going to do this?

Speaker 8 (48:04):
If you are producing the workers from your education system
K through twelve where they can graduate, maybe with a
little bit more training, get out into the workforce, you're
talking about a significant advantage that you be able to
you know, along with your cost of living and other things.
You know that you're going to be able to attract
some of those folks. But again, that means you have

(48:26):
to have healthy, skilled, and non traumatic workers. And that
means that that K through twelve process has to look
a heck of a lot different than we're just going
to do testing and try to get kids up. And
I think you know, have putting the resources behind that
are going to be really really important.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Liz, I'm going to give you the last word just
in thirty seconds. Is there anything that we missed in
this hour that didn't come up from our callers or
from me, or from you or the congressman that we
really should be thinking about in terms of re industrializing America.

Speaker 7 (49:02):
Well, let me just put it this way. We need
to be investing in both technology and in workers to
make this happen. All right, we need both of those
things to make the industrial transformation take place. We have
all the essentials. We have the innovation, we have a
workforce that we're growing, we have demand now, we have

(49:23):
a lot of agreement that we need a stronger defense
industrial base. We need critical minerals, the semiconductors, energy.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
All of that.

Speaker 7 (49:31):
So we have all the ingredients, but we really need
to see the investment in both the technology and the workers.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Well, a great note to end on Elizabeth Reynolds, Professor
of the Practice and the MIT Department of Urban Studies
and Planning, and former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan. Thank you
so much to both of you.

Speaker 6 (49:46):
Thank you great to be with you again, and.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. We've got extra
episodes every week, only available on the Middle podcast feed.
Next week we're back here. We're asking you, if you
are afraid now, to speak your mind freely. We're to
be joined by Tangle News editor at large Camille Foster
and philosopher Cornell West. A show not to be missed.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
As always, you can call in at eight four four
four Middle. That's eight four four four six four three
three five three, or you can reach out at Listen
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Speaker 1 (50:19):
If you have an idea for a show that you'd
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