Well that is a good question. Try this on. In Countries like China, the government subsidizes the cost of the labor force, sometimes raw materials, and often the building of a factory. The result is a product being produced in a Country like China costs less because of government subsidies. American manufacturing can't compete because we have to unfairly compete with a Country that artificially deflates the actual manufacturing cost. Add to the mix that the US government actually gave companies tax incentives to relocate over seas. On top of that, companies overseas do not have to worry about a whole bunch of employee related lawsuits. Add to that, all the people who know how to build factories left our Country.
Moreover, Apple used to own all its own factories, including ones in the United States. On top of the other factors I mentioned, owning your own factories often times hurt a publicly traded company. The reason is Apple would have to account for inventory on hand. Inventory sitting in a factory you own negatively effects your earnings. If Apple orders products from third parties the inventory doesn't count against Apple's earnings until Apple takes delivery. Further, Apple can pit different manufacturers against one another to reduce its manufacturing cost.
The United States has an abundance of Engineers. Many of the Engineers might not be from America, as we love to give foreigners preferential treatment when seeking an education in the United States. This isn't because there aren't plenty of qualified potential american engineering students it is because the Universities charge foreign students a lot more money to attend the Universities in the Us then Americans. If could make triple the money selling an education to a foreigner, wouldn't you? Once again, Americans are at a disadvantage here because these foreigner's education is usually paid for by foreign government resources.
Once graduated, the foreigners often stay in the United States and take jobs where American educated Engineers could have taken had they been let into the Universities.
If you want manufacturing to come back to the US along with the associate wealth, you instead get rid of the BS Free trade Agreements, which are not free. It used to be the case when a Country had an unfair trade advantage or engaged in policies we didn't like, we would hit their products with a tariff when it was shipped into the Country. It worked this way since the birth of our Country until about twenty years ago. This gave American companies the ability to compete with companies in foreign countries that had an unfair advantage. This in turn produced americans jobs, which generated profit spend in other businesses, and taxes used to pay for government services. IN the height of the greatest economic boom every (the eighties), greedy american companies decided they wanted even more profit. So they used their new found wealth to buy off Congress. Congress passed NAFTA, with allowed manufactured goods from Countries like China to freely enter our Country through Canada and Mexico. With NAFTA all the jobs along with the local wages, taxes, and pride said good bye.
