Let’s Just Pretend We Didn’t Offshore Manufacturing [View all]

[Teamster Jeff]

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Is an iPhone made in China and exported to Europe a U.S. export? Yes

Is an Apple executive a manufacturing worker? Yes

At least those could become the answers if a new proposal afoot among some in the administration is allowed to take effect. Federal agencies grouped under the bland-sounding Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC) are proposing to radically redefine U.S. manufacturing and trade statistics.

Under the proposal, U.S. firms that have offshored their production abroad – like Apple – would become “factoryless goods” manufacturers. The foreign factories that actually manufacture the goods – like the notorious iPhone-producing Foxconn factories in China – would no longer be manufacturers, but “service” providers for the rebranded “manufacturing” firms like Apple.

It appears the administration has been reading Orwell.
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While some details of the proposal remain open-ended, one thing is clear: this maneuver would obscure the erosion of U.S. manufacturing. It would disguise the mass-offshoring of U.S. middle-class factory jobs incentivized by NAFTA-style trade deals. It would undermine efforts to change the unfair trade and other policies that have led to such decline.
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