Personally I find the concept of a shooting war with China to be absolutely abhorrent.
Please let's not even casually ponder that as anything other than a disastorous outcome.
Has it simply been too long since major conflict for some parts of the West to not realize how terrible anything along those lines would actually be?
We aren't living in a TV show, Movie or Video Game here.
"World War 3" should be avoided at all costs.
If I may be so bold, such things will not be started by moving compute production lines to US Domestic Soil.
China seemed more than happy to allow Companies to out-source the grungiest parts of the Production onto Chinese Soil over the years . . . not that it matters much in the general scheme of things: human concern for the environment is extremely low on the list of Priorities these days.
Overlaying (or underlying, if you would) all this is the the whole "Pay Less; Buy More" market-meme, which is now firmly ingrained in Consumer culture-expectation.
There are a lot of layers (and layers, upon layers) in the Producer:Consumer dynamic, but there are few Consumers who are willingly pay more for something when they can conveniently purchase it elsewhere for less.
Who of us today filter our Product searches High-to-Low when intent upon buying?
Of course, what Producer exists who wants to pay more for the combined components of their Product, than they can expect to receive in return from the Consumer?
Businesses that market Products logically adhere to the primary goal of securing a profit for their endeavours. Otherwise, they will not remain long in the Market, correct?
Bezos started selling books. Walton started a mercantile chain.
They both realized that--to remain successful, and secure increasing profits--they would need to procure supply-chains that kept their costs down, and keep their profits high.
I don't have the time (or energy) to dive into the genius of Bezos's "storehouse the high-demand things close to the Consumer" strategy (great idea, but it's really not directly pertinent to the vein of "America First").
Sam Walton, on the other hand, sincerely (at least, initially) desired to support the American manufacturer whose Product was created on Domestic Soil.
"There are some Wal-Mart practices not to be found in the excellence literature. One is Walton's "Buying American" campaign. An extremely patriotic person, Walton decided to do something about America's balance of payments problems in the mid-1980s. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Wal-Mart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition. Between March, 1985 and 1988 Wal-Mart claims to have purchased over $1.2 billion worth of goods under this program, producing 22, 3000 [sic] jobs in the United States."
Interestingly, Sam could be seen toodling-around Bentonville in his F-150 (a 1998 copy of which currently sits in my driveway).
Do any of the currently-alive Waltons drive Domestic?
I'm not creating pedestals upon which to elevate our Producers, but to highlight that--no matter the ultimate convictions, efforts and visions--Producers have to wake-up and review the Company balance-sheets every day. If one has five stores to Manage, it's a relatively easy process. Successful Business eventually escapes the reach of the original hands, and has to fall into the multiples that inevitably decide how cohesive these tangents may operate.
Decedents usually pass-on their estate to their Beneficiaries, and it falls upon them to carry--or toss--the Torch.
In my experience, I've seen Company Values fail/fall when they fall into the hands of those other not their Creators.
C'est la vie.
To those of who really care about such things, the game of "Where is Sam Walton?" is really not that exciting anymore.
Truthfully, the game of "Where is Steve Jobs?" isn't, either.
