Signal China's rise as a manufacturing power cost US jobs and widened the 'red supply chain'

Summary

The tariff essay traces how China's emergence as an advanced manufacturing nation in the twenty-first century mirrored the United States' loss of manufacturing competitiveness. After joining the WTO in 2001, China took about two million US manufacturing jobs over roughly a decade and spent the following decade honing its technology through Made in China 2025. Apple alone has trained some 28 million technical workers since entering China's manufacturing ecosystem in 2008, more than California's entire labour force. During its first term the Trump administration urged factories to leave China, but most relocated to other low-wage Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh rather than returning to the US. The result, the author argues, was a wider 'red supply chain', and the second administration's hard-line tariffs express both an appeal to US manufacturers and frustration with allies.