In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Daniel Griswold of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University offered an important reminder that American manufacturing is actually at a peak, not a trough. The output from U.S. factories is roughly two-and-a-half times what it was in the early 1970s, according to government data. Industrial production hit an record high just before the Great Recession and is nearing that level again.
“America remains a manufacturing powerhouse,” Griswold said in an interview. “It’s just a different mix of stuff than we were making 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.”
Clothes, toys and steel beams may come from overseas, but the United States is refining oil, producing new medicines and building plenty of cars, airplanes and heavy machinery that are shipped around the world. American factories now add a record $2.4 trillion of value to the economy, Griswold said.
Free trade has not held back the manufacturing industry, he argued; it has allowed it to thrive. More than half of goods imported are not destined for store shelves but for the factory floor, materials to be used so that American factories can make even more stuff. Here’s the explanation from his op-ed:
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