Bringing money from overseas will not increase investment in manufacturing, tax reform is badly needed to encourage manufacturing in US, i like the idea of Border tax from Ryan.
Again, I certainly wouldn't be one who benefits from the suggestion, but doesn't it seem that it's a bit regressive to try to increase the number of manufacturing jobs when technology is pushing them into obsolescence?
Companies will ultimately do whatever is in the best interest of their bottom line. No matter what wage is paid, it's cheaper to have a fully automated production line, with perhaps a few people to keep it running. The days of three eight hour shifts a day, five or six days a week are probably fading away. Technology has made sure of that. The best defence against this ongoing trend is to educate and retrain people.
As an example from a non-manufacturing field, both radiology and cellular pathology can now be done faster and better by computers. We may be seeing the end of some specialties in medicine - should we insist that the jobs remain, even though it costs society more (both dollars and missed diagnoses)? Or should we prepare for this eventuality by re-education of the current workers, and by redirecting future ones towards other types of jobs?
And none of this even begins to account for the impact that 3D printing could have, once the technology begins to mature. There are already reports of 3D printed homes as well as the smaller, more intricate items. In the future, manufacturing may no longer occur in big factories, but instead in storefronts and in our homes. This may be 10, 30, or 30 years away still, but shouldn't we be preparing ourselves for that possibility?
Back to my point, bringing the money back to the US won't increase manufacturing (not much, anyhow). But it will put more money into the economy, assuming that the government doesn't waste it, but rather uses it for infrastructure and education. This in turn will create jobs for some, and opportunities to retrain for others.
Perhaps it could even be used to create a guaranteed basic income. There have been suggestions that would free up people to try things they couldn't otherwise afford, like starting a small business (and who knows - maybe one of those becomes the next Amazon, Apple, Google, etc). If nothing else, it would eliminate huge segments of government (no more need to administer all the different programs - just send one check to everyone, and it's done...) and this could help eliminate the deficit.
TL;DR
We (in all the developed countries) should be focusing preparing people for the massive change in the economy that is still coming. Instead of spending the money on rebuilding the old economic model, we need to prepare people for the next one.
Oh, and I trust the Foxconn CEO's statement about as far as I could throw a truck.
No matter who wants to take credit for this (and should it really matter?), the only thing that matters is that people are given a chance to make their lives better. We have all seen these kinds of promises lots of times before. When the shovels hit the dirt, then it's reasonable to start celebrating; until then, cautious optimism is safer.