Sadly I agree with unrecoverable. Not only China is not stupid and is not waiting around, but also this idea that American people under democratic system can withstand longer oppression than a hard core regime that makes people missing every day, is astonishing. We will have Americans riot on the streets, meanwhile Chinese people will just get a tad smaller rice bowls. And then you have Canada, India and most significant countries there that this Administration continues to offend. Canada is going thru rounds of serious talks to take up large amounts of goods produced in China, so is India. We might be at the point that if/when a new Administration comes and is ready to restart talks, China may say "sorry we don't have anymore hands/factories to produce goods and we are very happy with what we sale to Canada/China/[insert any country name that is not US]".
Side note, how is bringing back manufacturing really what American people want? Do you want to live next to a huge factory polluting air and creating unbearable noise? You think you children can or want to work as hard as Chinese folks doing repetitive tasks in stinky inhumane factories? At what rate? $2 per day? The reason it all got pushed outside of USA is exactly because the level of lifestyle Americans wanted and like. Now apparently we are being told by this Administration that "having cheap goods is not American dream."
I think it'll have to get /really/ bad in the US before anything close to a general strike/popular riot happens. We have plenty of bread and circuses to go around in the meantime.
This is what I don't get. We don't have masses of unemployed people waiting in the ranks to fill a large amount of new jobs, as unlikely an outcome as that even is. Which means any large uptick in people working in manufacturing would have to come from some other industry. So what jobs would we give up for it?
The people that want the manufacturing back don't live downwind of the pollution and can't hear the robots screwing together the widgets. They're hanging out in the Hamptons.
Side note, how is bringing back manufacturing really what American people want? Do you want to live next to a huge factory polluting air and creating unbearable noise? You think you children can or want to work as hard as Chinese folks doing repetitive tasks in stinky inhumane factories? At what rate? $2 per day? The reason it all got pushed outside of USA is exactly because the level of lifestyle Americans wanted and like. Now apparently we are being told by this Administration that "having cheap goods is not American dream."
God help us all!