I don't agree with the current policy or how poorly it is being implemented, but the USA could be manufacturing a lot more than it does.
Fair game question- Where do you propose the jobs shift from to increase manufacture? US unemployement is currently probably close to the median number and
over the last 50 years (per the FRED data) or so it hasn't really managed to get much below 2.5 %.
This is the serious issue we're going to run into: Even if we can get 2% more of the US employed, it is inarguably not enough to make america a center for production of base goods that can be obtained elsewhere much cheaper. So, in order to become a manufacturing capital of stuff we don't
need to manufacture at all, we have to cut into other parts of the workforce. Like, for example- scientific research
that the USA exports (I say that with heavy, heavy irony). OR, even better, we could cut into the healthcare sector- which I'm sure the currently large and aging generation is going to need (again, I say this with irony) to
increase in size, not decrease. Or (with even more irony) we could further erode what's left of the American Family value system that we are supposedly trying to
preserve by further making the very few stay at home parents (that can somehow manage to do that on one income, and of course with increasing irony) go to work producing socks or farming potatoes.
So treating your statement seriously for a moment, how do we increase American production in Goods that we don't need to produce? And at what cost? Because being the world's leader in scientific research and exports
was, by definition, pretty great.
EDIT gosh, perhaps it's that simple (if a bit imperialistic). being great is exporting what you're exceptional at, and importing what you can get for cheap.