If we had to dump China for better and cheaper labor, where should we go?

I am a Chinese living in a country that its MSM promote blind hatred toward China. The "propagandist" label is typical tactic to mute the facts you don't like ..... but it wont help you in any way.

 

We had an agreement which was suppose to take imports away from China and shift it to other all around the pacific - thus the name, Trans Pacific Partnership.

But Trump killed it. Why?

 

there are a few fully Democratic countries out there and they're not cheap to do business with.

you have so many dysfunctional democracies that can't compete with efficient authoritarian regime , so my pick would go to North Korea, labor is C̶h̶e̶a̶p̶ free

 

I can only guess its all about the bottom line. Still cheaper to have it done in asia. Transportation costs for products imported to the US is very minimal due to a larger bulk shipments relative to others.

 

China and India and others aren't just cheap but they are educated. Someone posted they wish those jobs could move to the rust belt but education anywhere here can be a problem

 

ur ill-informed.

according to the CIA fact sheet,

• India's literacy rate is ~~ 75%
• China's is ~~100%

literacy is defined as the ability to read and understand local nsewspaper

 

Vietnam is an option. Many companies already have plants there.

 

I think the question ( a good one) has a built -in fallacy. For critical industries, I think we should require manufacturing to be in the States and pay higher wages. Obvious categories would be critical pharma, military products and cutting edge tech — computing and telecommunications. I’m sure others could come up with a better list. But, for those things, we should simply require at least a certain percentage of those goods (and all required component parts) be manufactured here and pay the wages needed to attract the employees.

 

fyi

 

South East Asia is the best prepared to take over atm Esp Vietnam & Thailand.

Mexico is the most pushed in the USA.

 

In most trade agreements there is a national security exception and an argument could be made that companies that manufacture those type things should be compelled to manufacture in the US. Once people start looking at the costs difference I'm not sure that the market will sustain that. What might end up is that manufacturers will end up asking for the government to defray the costs of manufacturing things like PPE in the US.

What I think is more likely is that we will build up a larger strategic reserve of things like PPE. That will be cheaper and can be done much faster than moving manufacturing back to the US.

 

What's Mexico's literacy rate?

 

About 95% as of a couple of years ago.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SEADTLITRZSMEX

We should absolutely be pushing for economic development in Mexico and Central America. It's in our and their interests.