U.S. short on essentials for factory revival: report
NEW YORK, June 5 (Xinhua) -- The United States lacks nearly every part of the manufacturing ecosystem -- the workers, the training, the technology and the government support -- and in many industries, the undertaking to revive its factories would take years, if not decades, reported The New York Times on Thursday.
For example, "American factories are already struggling to fill around 500,000 manufacturing jobs, according to estimates by Wells Fargo economists. They calculate that to get manufacturing as a share of employment back to the 1970s peak that Mr. Trump has sometimes called for, new factories would have to open and hire 22 million people. There are currently 7.2 million unemployed people," noted the report.
Another example is the garment industry: there are no mills in the United States on the scale of what it needs, nor major zipper and button suppliers. Some 97 percent of the clothes and shoes that Americans buy are imported for cost reasons.
U.S. President Donald Trump "ignited a global trade war on a gamble that taxing other countries' goods would bring jobs and factories 'roaring back' to the United States," said the report, adding that "Trump has exposed the difficulties in closing the vast distances, geographical and logistical, between where many products are made and where they are consumed."
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