Trump in Savannah: Make the US a Manufacturing Superpower!

For America to escape our deepening national nightmare—for America to be “Great Again”—nothing is more important than our becoming a Manufacturing Superpower once more, and greater than ever before. American, not Chinese factories will once again meet America's needs—while they also export cutting-edge American products throughout the world.

President Trump has recognized this truth for decades, and it was the core of his Sept 24 address on economic policy in Savannah, Georgia. For the late Lyndon LaRouche, who founded the movement which gave birth to Promethean Action, this was the center of his policy for 50 years. When I first met LaRouche in the mid-1960s, he was campaigning to “reindustrialize the United States.” He was still campaigning for it when I spoke with him last, 50 years later. Donald Trump had just won the Presidency in a surprise election victory. And Lyndon LaRouche was warmly supporting him in that great reindustrialization project which the two men shared.

We often speak of this in terms of jobs—of the good, family-supporting manufacturing jobs we have lost. True—but that’s just a part of it. The great cycle of human advancement goes from science, through its laboratories, on into more advanced production processes and products, on to more educated and prosperous worker-consumers, and then back again into more new technological and scientific advances. Lyndon LaRouche called this the “machine-tool principle.” The insane scheme of moving our manufacturing to China has killed this cycle, as the late Intel founder Andy Grove and many others knew it would.

This principle described how America used to lead the world, as the names of Andrew Carnegie, the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford symbolize. This was the core of our national character ever since the New England settlements of the 1600s—even long before our Independence. In fact, one motive of our Revolution was that the British oligarchy forbade manufacturing here—as their descendants have done today.

Manufacturing Renaissance

Trump began his Savannah talk by saying that 42 days from today, on Nov 5, we’ll win a historic buildup of American manufacturing. He promised manufacturers: “I’ll give you the lowest taxes, energy costs, and regulatory burdens, and the world’s biggest market, but only if you make your product here and hire American workers.” [All quotations are approximate.]

He said “The policy that built America will save America.” Here, Trump was referring to the American System of Political Economy invented by Alexander Hamilton, and perfected by Republican Presidents from Lincoln through McKinley. “We’ll build ships again; we’ll build planes; we’ll be a world leader in robotics. We’ll lead in automotive production and be the envy of the planet…. Billions will proudly buy products stamped ‘Made in the USA.’”

“The Environmental Protection Agency delays projects by 5-20 years, but I won’t allow delays longer than months. We’ll foster a manufacturing boom through tariff and tax policies. Our advantage is not in muscle but in brainpower.”

To fuel manufacturing, Trump promised an expanded R&D tax credit, 100% write-off of heavy equipment for manufacturing, and full expensing (1-year write-off) for expansion of manufacturing. All, of course, only for those who manufacture in America with American workers. These are John F. Kennedy’s successful tax policies. 

Abundant, Cheap Energy

Otherwise, in his “Drill, Baby Drill” policy to supercharge energy production, Trump will resume exploitation of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)  and restart the Keystone Pipeline and natural gas export terminals—all blocked by Biden-Harris. He intends to bring oil and gas production to new historic highs, and slash energy prices.

The Biden-Harris administration is shutting down power plants nationwide under its Power Plant Rule, but Trump will open up “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of new power plants, as he said earlier, to double production of electricity to the levels needed to revive manufacturing. And to cut its cost in half during year one.

He will drastically cut the regulatory burden on business, going even further than he did in his first term. 

Special zones on federal land will welcome industry with ultra-low taxes and regulations—ideal for attracting industries from abroad. An American Manufacturing Ambassador will go abroad to convince industries to relocate here.

Our country has the strategic rare-earth metals and most other vital minerals for which we go abroad—it’s just that regulations and red tape block us from mining and refining them.  Under a Trump Administration, we will—and in an environmentally clean way.

Immediate Relief

To quickly crush inflation, Trump proposes: first, slashing energy prices through the policies outlined above. This will trickle through to reduce the costs of everything, since every product embodies energy. Second— The Biden-Harris “Inflation Reduction Act” and “Infrastructure Investment Act” allocated hundreds of billions for “Green” projects, many of which were never even started. Trump would redirect it into actual infrastructure like roads and bridges, and to pay down the national debt.

Biden’s big-spending infrastructure bill delivers little on key items - Washington Examiner

Some of Democrats’ pet projects under the bipartisan infrastructure bill have struggled to get off the ground in the past three years.

Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal GovernmentSarah Bedford

To relieve the crushing burdens imposed by Biden-Harris inflation, Trump will end taxation of tips, of Social Security benefits, and of overtime pay. He will impose a temporary 10% limit on credit-card interest, to give over indebted Americans breathing-room to recover.

During the long decades of deindustrialization and the rotting-out of our heartland and its cities, how many believed the Clintons and Obama when they said, “Those jobs are never coming back?” How many thought we would ever come through to see this day? Yet we have come through, and that day is almost on us, if we fight and win it.