Centering Domestic Manufacturing at 2025 Anti-monopoly Summit

Manufacturing prowess is "the hinge on which history turns," and much of it's taking place outside the United States, a panelist argues.

Why does making things in America matter? How can we encourage more things to be made here? Those are the questions a panel at the American Economic Liberties Project's 2025 Anti-Monopoly Summit sought to answer last week. The panel was hosted by Lori Wallach, director of Economic Liberties' Rethink Trade program, and included Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) and Chris Deluzio (D-PA); Joseph Ferrara, CEO and co-founder of apparel company Ferrara Manufacturing; and Rush Doshi, assistant professor at Georgetown University and Director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A lot was discussed, so here are our big takeaways.

Creating American Jobs

Perhaps the panel's most recurring theme was how critical it is to grow manufacturing jobs. Rep. Dingell in her opening remarks noted that "62% of Americans don't have college degrees." And those 62% of Americans, Dingell said, should be able to find a well-paying job. Manufacturing employment was for years attainable for workers with that level of educational attainment. But those jobs have been shipped overseas.

Rep. Deluzio meanwhile discussed how intrinsic manufacturing employment is in his western Pennsylvania district. "Woven into our cultural identity and pride is what those jobs meant to people," the congressman said. "It's about people seeing their hard work valued by our government, and the disrespect that comes … when our government and people in power don't respect it."

Existing manufacturing jobs need to be protected, but all the panelists agreed the sector's workforce needs to grow as well. That can be encouraged through training programs at different educational levels. Ferrara, the apparel manufacturing CEO (whose company we've featured on the Alliance for American Manufacturing blog), said he sees the appetite for these jobs firsthand.

"You've got these kids in (New York City) that are so excited to make a pocket flap, and that just makes me excited because that's the future. Can we multiply this by thousands?" Ferrara called for an expansion of associate's degree programs in engineering and manufacturing trades. Ferrara also seconded Rep. Deluzio's call for an increase of trade programs in high schools.

Increasing National Economic Competitiveness

The panel also said bolstering American manufacturing was needed to increase the U.S. economy's global competitiveness. Right now, the manufacturing environment worldwide is dominated by one country: China. Doshi pointed out that around 30% of manufacturing worldwide is done in that country.

"Manufacturing is the hinge on which history sometimes turns," he said. "That kind of manufacturing prowess now exists in China."

"When you compete with a country that is manipulating its currency, subsidizing its production, using slave labor, that's just not a level playing field," said Rep. Dingell. That's a big problem, and it's why AAM has steadily pushed for policies that address these issues. But it's not the only reason the U.S. manufacturing sector has retreated in recent decades.

"We have historically had a low tariff rate and our competitors have a high tariff rate, so we can't sell into those countries," said Doshi. "(And) even when they do lower their tariffs, they're doing it after we've lost a lot of our industry."

Bolstering America's National and Economic Security

Finally, the most pressing matter the panel discussed was the threat to security that deindustrialization poses. Rep. Dingell evoked it to reference the domestic steel industry. "Loss of steel is not just an economic security issue; it's a national security issue," she said. "We need to build things here and not be reliant on another country."

Doshi spoke about how U.S. manufacturing prowess - our national ability to retool and scale up production for a war effort - was essential in to the country's ability to win World War II. "God forbid there's a conflict someday and we can't manufacture the way we need like we used to," he said.

But it doesn't have to be a conflict, either. As we saw during the COVID pandemic, any large-scale disaster can imperil supply chains and have disastrous impacts on the economy if we're too reliant on imports. That's why it's so important to build our own manufacturing capacity.

Doshi pointed to China's dominant position in production rare earth production, which are critical for technology, and many pharmaceuticals. China could use that leverage to coerce the United States in any number of fora; in fact, it already has. "There are real supply chain risks for us that could become the site of Chinese coercion if we don't get that supply chain back," Doshi said.

What we need to do to avoid that, as all the panelists suggested, is to focus on policies that will help build that supply chain here in the United States.

You can watch the full panel discussion below (the panel starts at 5:19:22):