Exactly this, for most generic goods, automation has reached the point where the cost of producing goods somewhere not too far from a major American rail route

Exactly this, for most generic goods, automation has reached the point where the cost of producing goods somewhere not too far from a major American rail route is only marginally more expensive to deliver to the end consumer than had you produced it in China or elsewhere. The problem is that the Chinese manufacturing environment has a much tighter supply chain, where all the precursor products needed are also manufactured nearby with heavily optimized supply chains for getting raw goods where they need to be. This is especially true with high weight added products such as appliances. The real problem is that we absolutely suck at manufacturing anything other than items that only really make sense to manufacture locally (certain food items, detergents), where in terms of exports we only exceed at certain types of heavy machinery along with certain chemical and polymer products.