> The US has the second largest manufacturing base in the world after China. It's larger than India and is even slightly larger than the EU.

Of only end products. The "largest manufacturing base" is misleading when majority of inputs for your finished goods are dependent on imports.

> it doesn't matter if something is currently made in the US

It definitely does matter. The right way to have gone about this was to first build the manufacturing capacity in US before imposition of tariffs. It was done in the reverse, which led to US revealing its hand too early, allowing for rest of the World to re-calibrate and start the process of de-dollarization.

> foreign manufacturers to have to lower prices. They could also switch to substitute products or reduce consumption and then foreign manufacturers would still have to lower prices to limit the extent to which that happens.

It won't happen. There is no reason for exporters to lower prices when tariffs only set a new normal. Once the prices have gone up and consumer spending has stabilized around those jacked up prices, that will set the benchmark. Just study history. No product has been devalued due to any contingent circumstances unless the product itself becomes obsolete. Here you are not talking about novel products being developed and manufactured that will obsolete something popular. You are talking about bringing back manufacturing of nuts, bolts etc. Things that are critical and have an already established price in the market that will only go up higher in price once manufacturing moves to US eventually. Rest of the World will adjust to the new higher price.