My friend Tom Chappelear posted a response to my posting, and I responded:
You may be right, but I am inclined otherwise. How much of the off-shoring is due to other countries’ protectionist policies, and how much is due to the U.S. over-regulating manufacturing, so that labor is cheaper and more flexible abroad? I disagree with Oren Cass’s support for protectionism and industrial policy, but I found his chapter on environmental regulations eye-opening. Ever-more-onerous environmental regulations don’t do anything to make the air and water healthier, but do a lot to make manufacturing in the U.S. more expensive and less nimbly adaptive. Our labor regulations also make it much harder for U.S. entrepreneurs to hire U.S. laborers, and to deploy them in innovative ways.