A more realistic estimate would be 10X to allow for the cost of factory investment, raw material refinement and processing, and assembly by local semi-skilled w

A more realistic estimate would be 10X to allow for the cost of factory investment, raw material refinement and processing, and assembly by local semi-skilled workers. Computers used to be made like this. The hardware cost the modern equivalent of tens of thousands to tens of millions, partly because the assembly workers were well-managed, well-trained, and well-paid. This was DEC's business model, and it worked well for a couple of decades. Offshoring from the early 80s on allowed US corporates to double dip and explode their margins. Local workers were laid off and replaced with cheaper offshore workers, wages for most jobs were cut in real terms (with a few critical exceptions, like software dev), but the people who did have jobs had access to much cheaper imports. Property became catastrophically expensive, but other sectors, including consumer goods, electronics, non-premium clothes, and domestic essentials like furniture became much cheaper in real terms - which took the sting out of the loss of the better-paying jobs. You can't reverse that overnight without catastrophic damage, because prices will explode but wages will still be depressed. You will be making domestic commodity products that have no market. Reindustrialisation is a fantasy. You can't bring the factories back without reinventing the economy from the ground up and making all of the parts fit together in new ways. That would take decades, and a level of strategic insight the US is completely unable to imagine for political reasons.