"So Trump's strategy is working then, which is awesome to hear. Companies in America will see it's lucrative again to produce goods long since left behind because it wasn't worth producing given imports were cheaper."

This is what Bernie & co. Have been saying for years.

Problem is, it's not true. Or at least most likely not true. Depending on the tariff rate, US producers would simply match prices to what a comparable imported product would cost. Basically, it's the government forcing US consumers to pay more for a product in order to benefit US-based industry. But here's the rub-the population of the US is around 340 million. The global consumer class is around 3.5 billion. The US government can force USans to pay more, but they can't force consumers in other countries to do the same. When the US implements tariffs against another country, that country responds in kind. Which in this case means that US manufacturers lose as much as 90% of potential market share.

There are other problems as well. Who is going to work in these factories that provide all the goods and services that the US would need to replicate locally in order to meet demand? Robots? Maybe, IDK. But there isn't going to be a sufficient labor force, unless the demand for local labor drives labor costs in manufacturing to the point where skilled workers are choosing to work in factories rather than in their trained profession. This gets into the economic concepts of absolute advantage and comparative advantage. Skilled should and do benefit society in a way that unskilled workers cannot. And when policy compels skilled workers to take jobs that don't require those skills, you lose out on those people being able to contribute at the level they otherwise would have in a free market environment.

"Holy shit, MadBomber got an economics question substantially right. And only invoked the mythological "unskilled labor unicorns" as an aside."

It's not an aside at all. If a teacher or nurse can make more working in a factory then they could working as a nurse or a teacher, they have incentive to do so. Even if their new chosen profession doesn't require the use of their training. Because at the end of the day, they are as fully qualified as unskilled workers as someone who did not train as a teacher or a nurse. This is nothing new. In the 1960s and 1970s, it wasn't uncommon for college grads to take union jobs because they paid more, and offered better working conditions. That paradigm began to erode as European and Asian markets developed and introduced competition to the global marketplace. That happened as the natural result of post-WWII re-development, but Trump appears to want to re-create similar conditions through political policy. The problem is, those Asian and European markets still exist and are quite robust. And they're likely looking forward to capturing those markets that Trump seems willing to cede in an effort to create a globally isolated market in the US.

I watch the currency markets like a hawk. The devaluation of the dollar has already resulted in a 10% pay cut for me as someone who is paid in US$, but pays bills in EUR. I recently read an article from 2024 regarding Trump's idea to de-value the dollar in order to make US-made goods more attractive to importers. First, it would crush me, but I alone am not a key policy concern, nor is any other expat living on a decreasing income. For people living in the US, I'm not as clear on the impact. In theory, the impact on consumers who would pay higher prices for US goods that were matched to comparable imports. But even then, US exports are not going to be all that attractive if the importing country puts tariffs on them.

Republicans have traditionally looked to how to increase free-market efficiencies. Trump seems to want to take more of a Dennis Kucinich approach.