The Rumors of Manufacturing’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

“US manufacturing grows for 13th straight month” is the headline of an AP newswire story posted around noon today.  This statistic doesn’t surprise me, since I’ve been following developments in U.S. manufacturing for many years now, and have published analyses of public data that refute the myth of deindustrialization and manufacturing decline. 

With the exception of the recession of 08-09, when all U.S. economic sectors took a hit, U.S. manufacturing has been breaking its own record, year after year, with respect to output, value-added, profits, returns on investment, exports, and imports. U.S. factories are the world’s most prolific, accounting for 21.4% of global manufacturing value added in 2008 (China accounted for 13.4%).

But I bring the AP headline to your attention for one reason: so that you can judge for yourself who has any credibility on Capitol Hill, within the executive branch, in the media, among organized labor, in industry, in the think tank world, and within the international trade bar, as Nancy Pelosi tries to stuff a ruinous anti-China trade bill down our throats in the name of supporting our floundering manufacturing base.  Look for the columns, the op-eds, the press releases, and the floor statements between next week and November.

Who among them will continue to cite our suffering manufacturing sector as the justification for protectionism?  They should never again have any credibility.