May 23, 2025 • 11 mins
Ben Reinhardt, CEO of Speculative Technologies and Businessweek Contributing Writer, breaks down how the US should study China's playbook, create new manufacturing paradigms, and preserve American strengths, such as its scientific and technological leadership and its relationships with allies.
He argues this can be achieved by attracting foreign investment, building industrial hubs, developing new technologies like artificial intelligence, and fostering a welcoming environment for skilled immigrants, rather than relying on tariffs and isolationist policies
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
I want to talk about American manufacturing because back ahead
of the financial crisis, the sector's workforce was about a
million people stronger, got it. It's never recovered Nope since then.
(00:25):
But as Dan Wang and a research fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover History Lab, and Ben Reinhardt, the CEO of
the nonprofit Industrial Research Lab Speculative Technologies, right in the
June issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine, American industry has certainly
seen better days. They argue, though, that tariffs are not
the solution to revitalizing the sector. Ben Reinhardt joins us
(00:47):
now in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Ben, you have
a tariff free menu of policies that offer a sure
path to revitalizing US manufacturing. You and Dan, right before
we get there, explain for everybody what an industrial research
lab is.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, so I like to describe it as we are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
We're a research lab in the sense that we are
working on trying to create new technologies.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
We're not working on products.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
But at the same time, we're trying to do research
that is not just trying to discover the secrets of
the universe, but really build useful technologies. So that's sort
of the line, like to think that we're walking where
it's like we're doing stuff that doesn't make sense yet
as a company, I wouldn't go to an investor and say,
you can make a bunch of money, but we are
nevertheless like trying to do things that eventually will become useful.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So think the lab Xerox park that sort.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Of work very cool, so sort of a skunk works
type of thing, exactly pre product. Okay, you and Dan
thought a lot about have been thinking a lot about
tariffs in the way that the President has been trying
to revitalize American manufacturing. His love for tariffs is no secret.
We've known about it for many, many decades, but I
think perhaps it caught some investors off guard back in
(01:59):
April when he announced the reciprocal tariffs on so called
Liberation Day. You argue that there are better ways to
revive manufacturing in the US. You say, we should look
at what China has done.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, So there are two things in particular that they've
done that. So they've done many things, some of them
I don't we don't think that we should copy. But
there are two in particular that I think are particularly
worth looking at. One of them is inviting in foreign investment. Right,
so so actually one of the ways that they built
(02:32):
up their manufacturing is by inviting in foreign companies and
you know, getting them to build factories there and sort
of regardless of your position on stealing technology, you still
build up a workforce that knows how to build those
things and then can go and you know, build that technology.
So you can imagine inviting in Chinese companies even who
(02:54):
have now technologies that that we don't have, and you
then build up a workforce who knows how to to
make bat batteries.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So that's one.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Two is like industrial zones, right, So you're the most
well known is Hinzhen, but there are there are many
others where to a large extent, the government took a
very like hands off approach and just said like, okay,
like within this zone you can basically do whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
There's a lot of nuance.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
To that, but right now we are it is extremely
hard to build new factories.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I do want to push back a little bit on this.
My one experience in China back in twenty nineteen, before
the pandemic, I went to Shanghai. I know it's a
completely different place now, but one thing that struck me
was when the plane landed, I looked out the window
and it was the thick what I thought was the
thickest fog. It turned out it was pollution. My throat
was sore the entire time I was there. We couldn't
(03:52):
see out of our hotel room windows because we're on
like the fifteenth floor, and the air was too clogged
with pollution as a result of some of the industrialization
that we're talking about here. Do we really want that
in the US?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I don't think it's an either or sort of thing.
Modern A lot of modern manufacturing technologies no longer produce
that sort of that sort of waste, and a lot
of the manufacturing that we're talking about doesn't do that,
and there are many many technologies for cleaning that up.
So you were seeing sort of the results of manufacturing
(04:26):
technologies from like the fifties and sixties, and so we're saying, like, Okay,
we're going to build technologies of the twenty first century
which have many fewer side effects.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Ben I got to say, what's really cool is our
Steveman of our Bloomberg Intelligence team and covers the auto sector,
and one of the things he has said recently to us,
because as we think about tire of and bringing manufacturing
back home, he said, one thing that China learned. I
mean by doing all that manufacturing, they actually developed some
very sophisticated technology that is now helping them to kind
(04:55):
of operate on a higher plane. And whether it's developed
cart like whatever have you. And I never thought about that.
I guess I thought about bringing manufacturing back home. Do
we really want to be making T shirts and sneakers?
But that's not what it's about. It's about they've become
very sophisticated with technology because of the automation and all
of the manufacturing they've been doing.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh yeah, couldn't agree. More.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Manufacturing and new technology and research really go hand in hand.
You can't have one without another. Honestly, That's one of
the reasons why I'm such a big proponent of manufacturing
is because.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
We always put that together.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the best technologies, the best research
comes from noticing a problem on an actual manufacturing line, right,
like going back to us being an industrial research alott.
The point is to notice, oh, there's this actual, real
problem in the world, and we need to do research
to fix it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I think it's pretty well so is President Trump bright
in terms of encouraging companies outside the United States, even
American companies, to start investing.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
More here along that axis.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, I think I will not unequivocally agree with with everything.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
But encouraging for it. And as many have said to us,
you know, there are commitments and then you'll see whether
or not those commitments, which are often multi year commitments.
And also you can't just build a factory overnight, right
or a facility. But we'll see over time whether or
not this actually happens.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think that it would ideally be done with carrots
and not sticks.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But yes, I think the message right, but maybe not
the mode. Yeah exactly is at least your review. Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That's one way to be thinking about this study. China.
I want to talk a little bit about some other
solutions that you have preserving the strengths that America already has.
Talk a little bit about what you mean by that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, so, you know, America has a lot of strengths
that I feel like, like literally today we are sort
of throwing away, right, Like, we have this amazing ability
to attray talent from all over the world and.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
If the universities let them in.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, exactly, and and the universities and in immigration, right like,
so historically, in.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
All seriousness, I'm not bringing that up facetiously, I'm saying
that that is at risk right now given the different
rules that we've seen.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And so so our point is like, don't like, don't
stop like that's that that is really and that is
a unique strength of ours, right like China doesn't attract
global talent in the same way that that we do.
And again in our our university and research system. Also,
you know, you've seen the all like the cuts to
(07:38):
NSF and NIH and NASA and the list goes on,
and you know, our our research ecosystem is the envy
of the world, and we shouldn't you know, keep keep
that the case.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
What do you say to folks who say, listen, Okay,
you've got something like an IVY League that has an
incredibly large endowment. So why does the government government need
to give them money.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
To do R and D.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So what's the argument to that? What you know, are
you going to give it? Give it to you and
maybe another organization that needs it. More like, what's the
argument for continuing for federal money to go to some
of these massive, well known institutions, academic institutions.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, so there's a lot of nuance that we can't
get into here. I think that they're like rethinking where
the money, like where government R and D money goes. Yeah,
definitely another conversation for another time. But just like as
things stand now, like the money should go to the
best researchers, Like the best research is going to come
for the best research. Research is like very much a
(08:38):
power law distributed thing, and for better or for worse,
the best researchers are at places like Harvard and so
that would be my argument for it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Then what do you say the risks to US manufacturing
or to the US economy if the United States continues
with this tariff program?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
See, just like US manufacturing, like it's not going to
necessarily make manufacturing better, right, Like, I don't think it's
actually going to achieve the aims. You see, because so
many of the parts that people that manufacturers depend on
are are coming from overseas and are being heavily tariffed,
and so like you're already seeing like manufacturers of CNC
(09:22):
machines getting completely hosed by UH by the tariffs, and
so I just see like manufacturing as an industry being
directly hurt by, let alone not helped.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, I think it's kind of you know, who knows
where this goes, right ultimately, But I think like understanding
the impact that immigrants are immigration and bringing folks in
from other countries, whether it's in high skilled or low
skilled jobs, like has an economic impact, right, and it
pays off in many different ways or tends to absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I mean you just like I interact with a lot
of researchers. You look at who is getting stem PhDs,
who who's doing research and like hard science and technology,
and it's the vast majority of people are are not
from the US.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
How do you think about all of this with something
that is going to be obviously a big deal And
I'm thinking about artificial intelligence and I think about deep
seek And when that news came out, we all were like, oh,
you know, China is they're moving ahead?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, the I think the argument is across all of it, right,
Like you want, like ideally it would be great for
some of the people who developed deep Seat to want
to come to the US and do work here, right,
And again, you look at who is actually working at
these AI companies, and there's people from all across the world,
Like I have friends there there, and like you know,
(10:52):
people who came up with a lot of the algorithms
that the US AI companies are using are not American.
And so again this is just like sample after an
example of our strength is our ability to pull in
these talented people thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Are you optimistic or pessimistic that some of this stuff
will be adopted?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I am.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I am pessimistic, but I am optimistic that that can change.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But if we don't get this right, big.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Deal big deal meaning the.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
US economy meaning US role in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Or yeah, I think all of the above.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I think that you could really see us, like honestly
on some kind of like some kind of decline, some
kind of like becoming like ming China or Japan after
they close themselves off.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
We're gonna leave it on that though, I'm sure we'll
come back to you. Definitely certainly something to get us
all thinking. Ben ryan Hart, he's Blueberg Business Week contributing writer,
And see you have speculative technologies,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
I want to talk about American manufacturing because back ahead
of the financial crisis, the sector's workforce was about a
million people stronger, got it. It's never recovered Nope since then.
(00:25):
But as Dan Wang and a research fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover History Lab, and Ben Reinhardt, the CEO of
the nonprofit Industrial Research Lab Speculative Technologies, right in the
June issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine, American industry has certainly
seen better days. They argue, though, that tariffs are not
the solution to revitalizing the sector. Ben Reinhardt joins us
(00:47):
now in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Ben, you have
a tariff free menu of policies that offer a sure
path to revitalizing US manufacturing. You and Dan, right before
we get there, explain for everybody what an industrial research
lab is.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, so I like to describe it as we are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
We're a research lab in the sense that we are
working on trying to create new technologies.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
We're not working on products.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
But at the same time, we're trying to do research
that is not just trying to discover the secrets of
the universe, but really build useful technologies. So that's sort
of the line, like to think that we're walking where
it's like we're doing stuff that doesn't make sense yet
as a company, I wouldn't go to an investor and say,
you can make a bunch of money, but we are
nevertheless like trying to do things that eventually will become useful.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So think the lab Xerox park that sort.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Of work very cool, so sort of a skunk works
type of thing, exactly pre product. Okay, you and Dan
thought a lot about have been thinking a lot about
tariffs in the way that the President has been trying
to revitalize American manufacturing. His love for tariffs is no secret.
We've known about it for many, many decades, but I
think perhaps it caught some investors off guard back in
(01:59):
April when he announced the reciprocal tariffs on so called
Liberation Day. You argue that there are better ways to
revive manufacturing in the US. You say, we should look
at what China has done.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, So there are two things in particular that they've
done that. So they've done many things, some of them
I don't we don't think that we should copy. But
there are two in particular that I think are particularly
worth looking at. One of them is inviting in foreign investment. Right,
so so actually one of the ways that they built
(02:32):
up their manufacturing is by inviting in foreign companies and
you know, getting them to build factories there and sort
of regardless of your position on stealing technology, you still
build up a workforce that knows how to build those
things and then can go and you know, build that technology.
So you can imagine inviting in Chinese companies even who
(02:54):
have now technologies that that we don't have, and you
then build up a workforce who knows how to to
make bat batteries.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So that's one.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Two is like industrial zones, right, So you're the most
well known is Hinzhen, but there are there are many
others where to a large extent, the government took a
very like hands off approach and just said like, okay,
like within this zone you can basically do whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
There's a lot of nuance.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
To that, but right now we are it is extremely
hard to build new factories.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I do want to push back a little bit on this.
My one experience in China back in twenty nineteen, before
the pandemic, I went to Shanghai. I know it's a
completely different place now, but one thing that struck me
was when the plane landed, I looked out the window
and it was the thick what I thought was the
thickest fog. It turned out it was pollution. My throat
was sore the entire time I was there. We couldn't
(03:52):
see out of our hotel room windows because we're on
like the fifteenth floor, and the air was too clogged
with pollution as a result of some of the industrialization
that we're talking about here. Do we really want that
in the US?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I don't think it's an either or sort of thing.
Modern A lot of modern manufacturing technologies no longer produce
that sort of that sort of waste, and a lot
of the manufacturing that we're talking about doesn't do that,
and there are many many technologies for cleaning that up.
So you were seeing sort of the results of manufacturing
(04:26):
technologies from like the fifties and sixties, and so we're saying, like, Okay,
we're going to build technologies of the twenty first century
which have many fewer side effects.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Ben I got to say, what's really cool is our
Steveman of our Bloomberg Intelligence team and covers the auto sector,
and one of the things he has said recently to us,
because as we think about tire of and bringing manufacturing
back home, he said, one thing that China learned. I
mean by doing all that manufacturing, they actually developed some
very sophisticated technology that is now helping them to kind
(04:55):
of operate on a higher plane. And whether it's developed
cart like whatever have you. And I never thought about that.
I guess I thought about bringing manufacturing back home. Do
we really want to be making T shirts and sneakers?
But that's not what it's about. It's about they've become
very sophisticated with technology because of the automation and all
of the manufacturing they've been doing.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh yeah, couldn't agree. More.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Manufacturing and new technology and research really go hand in hand.
You can't have one without another. Honestly, That's one of
the reasons why I'm such a big proponent of manufacturing
is because.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
We always put that together.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like the best technologies, the best research
comes from noticing a problem on an actual manufacturing line, right,
like going back to us being an industrial research alott.
The point is to notice, oh, there's this actual, real
problem in the world, and we need to do research
to fix it.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I think it's pretty well so is President Trump bright
in terms of encouraging companies outside the United States, even
American companies, to start investing.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
More here along that axis.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yes, I think I will not unequivocally agree with with everything.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
But encouraging for it. And as many have said to us,
you know, there are commitments and then you'll see whether
or not those commitments, which are often multi year commitments.
And also you can't just build a factory overnight, right
or a facility. But we'll see over time whether or
not this actually happens.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I think that it would ideally be done with carrots
and not sticks.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But yes, I think the message right, but maybe not
the mode. Yeah exactly is at least your review. Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That's one way to be thinking about this study. China.
I want to talk a little bit about some other
solutions that you have preserving the strengths that America already has.
Talk a little bit about what you mean by that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, so, you know, America has a lot of strengths
that I feel like, like literally today we are sort
of throwing away, right, Like, we have this amazing ability
to attray talent from all over the world and.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
If the universities let them in.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, exactly, and and the universities and in immigration, right like,
so historically, in.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
All seriousness, I'm not bringing that up facetiously, I'm saying
that that is at risk right now given the different
rules that we've seen.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
And so so our point is like, don't like, don't
stop like that's that that is really and that is
a unique strength of ours, right like China doesn't attract
global talent in the same way that that we do.
And again in our our university and research system. Also,
you know, you've seen the all like the cuts to
(07:38):
NSF and NIH and NASA and the list goes on,
and you know, our our research ecosystem is the envy
of the world, and we shouldn't you know, keep keep
that the case.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
What do you say to folks who say, listen, Okay,
you've got something like an IVY League that has an
incredibly large endowment. So why does the government government need
to give them money.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
To do R and D.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
So what's the argument to that? What you know, are
you going to give it? Give it to you and
maybe another organization that needs it. More like, what's the
argument for continuing for federal money to go to some
of these massive, well known institutions, academic institutions.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, so there's a lot of nuance that we can't
get into here. I think that they're like rethinking where
the money, like where government R and D money goes. Yeah,
definitely another conversation for another time. But just like as
things stand now, like the money should go to the
best researchers, Like the best research is going to come
for the best research. Research is like very much a
(08:38):
power law distributed thing, and for better or for worse,
the best researchers are at places like Harvard and so
that would be my argument for it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Then what do you say the risks to US manufacturing
or to the US economy if the United States continues
with this tariff program?
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I mean, I.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
See, just like US manufacturing, like it's not going to
necessarily make manufacturing better, right, Like, I don't think it's
actually going to achieve the aims. You see, because so
many of the parts that people that manufacturers depend on
are are coming from overseas and are being heavily tariffed,
and so like you're already seeing like manufacturers of CNC
(09:22):
machines getting completely hosed by UH by the tariffs, and
so I just see like manufacturing as an industry being
directly hurt by, let alone not helped.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yeah, I think it's kind of you know, who knows
where this goes, right ultimately, But I think like understanding
the impact that immigrants are immigration and bringing folks in
from other countries, whether it's in high skilled or low
skilled jobs, like has an economic impact, right, and it
pays off in many different ways or tends to absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I mean you just like I interact with a lot
of researchers. You look at who is getting stem PhDs,
who who's doing research and like hard science and technology,
and it's the vast majority of people are are not
from the US.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
How do you think about all of this with something
that is going to be obviously a big deal And
I'm thinking about artificial intelligence and I think about deep
seek And when that news came out, we all were like, oh,
you know, China is they're moving ahead?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah, the I think the argument is across all of it, right,
Like you want, like ideally it would be great for
some of the people who developed deep Seat to want
to come to the US and do work here, right,
And again, you look at who is actually working at
these AI companies, and there's people from all across the world,
Like I have friends there there, and like you know,
(10:52):
people who came up with a lot of the algorithms
that the US AI companies are using are not American.
And so again this is just like sample after an
example of our strength is our ability to pull in
these talented people thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Are you optimistic or pessimistic that some of this stuff
will be adopted?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I am.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I am pessimistic, but I am optimistic that that can change.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
But if we don't get this right, big.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Deal big deal meaning the.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
US economy meaning US role in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Or yeah, I think all of the above.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
I think that you could really see us, like honestly
on some kind of like some kind of decline, some
kind of like becoming like ming China or Japan after
they close themselves off.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
We're gonna leave it on that though, I'm sure we'll
come back to you. Definitely certainly something to get us
all thinking. Ben ryan Hart, he's Blueberg Business Week contributing writer,
And see you have speculative technologies,
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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