alt Hacker News1. The US industrial output has been growing for decades[1]. US manufacturing is doing very well, it's US manufacturing jobs that aren't due to automation.
2. Manufacturing as % of the population has long been declining globally including China. Labor cost is a very minor expense in modern manufacturing unless we talking something like clothing. I don't think Americans miss the millions of jobs they had 60 years ago sewing shoes.
3. Car industry isn't critical manufacturing capability by any means. I can understand ships, or steel or even chips, but cars?
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
That just shows dollar amounts, with no sense of what's being sold.
Being that so many companies have moved production to China to make their products cheaper, I'd be curious as to what then comprises those savings.