Staff Reports
America’s factories used to roar with pride. They were the beating heart of our economy, producing the cars we drove, the steel that built our bridges, and the appliances that filled our homes. Those jobs didn’t just pay the bills—they built the middle class, strengthened communities, and gave generations of Americans the dignity of honest work. But over the past few decades, that heartbeat has been outsourced, sold off piece by piece to the lowest bidder in a global race to the bottom.
Corporate executives and politicians—both Republican and Democrat—promised us that outsourcing would “open new markets” and “create more opportunity at home.” Instead, we got boarded-up factories, hollowed-out towns, and an economy increasingly dependent on imports from countries that don’t share our values, let alone our respect for fair labor and environmental standards. We were told we’d transition to a “service economy,” as if flipping burgers or answering call center phones could replace the high-paying manufacturing jobs that supported entire families.
The truth is ugly: outsourcing isn’t about efficiency or “progress.” It’s about greed. It’s about CEOs chasing cheaper labor in nations where wages are a fraction of ours, and where safety standards are nonexistent. It’s about politicians who take campaign donations from these same corporations while turning a blind eye to the devastation in their own districts. Every time an American company packs up and moves its operations overseas, it’s not just machines and jobs leaving—it’s the erosion of our independence.
When America can’t manufacture its own steel, its own microchips, or its own medicine, we’re not just losing jobs—we’re losing sovereignty. We’re putting our national security in the hands of foreign governments, some of whom are openly hostile to us. The COVID pandemic made that crystal clear, when supply chains collapsed, and we discovered that critical goods—from PPE to pharmaceuticals—were controlled by countries like China.
We need to reverse course. That means bringing back the jobs, cutting tax breaks for companies that offshore, and rewarding those that build and hire here at home. It means tariffs on countries that exploit slave labor and undercut American workers. It means rejecting trade deals that strip us of our leverage and sell out our industrial backbone. And it means electing leaders who put American workers ahead of Wall Street profits.
For too long, “free trade” has been a one-way street, with American workers left in the dust while foreign nations grow stronger on our dime. It’s time to restore the manufacturing might that once made us the envy of the world. Because a nation that can’t make its own goods isn’t truly free—and America was never meant to be dependent on anyone but itself.
