Every January, the global automobile industry gathers in the Motor City for the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). In a celebration of ingenuity, companies display futuristic concept cars, present cutting-edge technologies, and promote their latest offerings.
Changes are underway which could substantially diminish the relevance of export-led development strategies for countries in East Asia.
The global production of goods can be charted by each stage at which activity occurs and value is added. The great news is that Americans excel at the activities on the production curve that require the most creativity and know-how, and that generate the most profit.
Most products today are the result of creative, physical, and intellectual efforts by people in different roles across the globe—they are designed in one country, their materials are procured in another, their components may be made and assembled somewhere else. Their “Made in…” labels only tell us the country where that product last underwent some significant change or “substantial transformation”. That’s just a snapshot of one stop on their journey
At the end of his four-year apprenticeship, Allen Miller will hold a journeyman’s license in industrial maintenance, an associate’s degree from nearby Germanna Community College, and a certificate in “asphalt technology” issued by the Virginia Asphalt Association. He might be the model for the kind of worker the U.S. economy needs more of to succeed.
Many important developments in the region’s energy market have reshaped the industry. The NAFTA renegotiation may be the chance to move closer to the goal of free trade and investment in the North American energy sector.
U.S. manufacturers will create more than 3 million job openings over the next decade – but two million of these future jobs could go unfilled. “If we’re not able to ensure a skilled workforce and a steady supply of skilled workers for manufacturers in this country, then [companies will] either go out of business or be forced to look elsewhere.” – Gardner Carrick of the Manufacturing Institute
Pull into a camp ground and you’ll find tremendous variety among recreational vehicles (RVs) parked there. Around eighty percent of them were made Elkhart County, Indiana. Today, less than 10 percent of U.S. RV production is exported, but the industry is finding opportunity in some surprising new markets including China, the United Arab Emirates, Korea and Thailand.
In an era when who trades, what is traded, and how it’s trade are in constant flux, the only constant for international trade rules is the potential for obsolescence. Technological innovations are testing the limitations — and rationale — of the old rules.
Dear King George III: stop cutting off our trade from the rest of the world. That was among our grievances in the Declaration of Independence. The next 140 years saw U.S. tariffs rise and fall in response to the domestic preoccupation with the politics of protection.