> That doesn't change that people here want those cutting edge manufacturing and job opportunities the US has. They don't want to be stuck competition with China in commodity widgets like cars or low margin 16nm-65nm microcontrollers

You can't build an ecosystem for bleeding edge work without an even larger pipeline of non-bleeding edge and even legacy workflow. For example, it's 14nm that pays the bills for TSMC - not 5nm/7nm.

And much of the entire Taiwanese electronics industry is largely coalesced around legacy nodes and low value work as well.

> There's a limited market for ASML machines

Made in American using American IP by a US DoE JV.

> high bureaucracy, strong unions, private companies slowly moved jobs elsewhere where it's cheaper to do business, no unions, less environmentalism, less labor protections, etc

Yet European Biopharma and chemicals engineering remains competitive despite having similar issues as a similar capex heavy industry with a significant IP component. It's really just an institutional issue.