Burlison: Under President Trump, Manufacturing is Coming Back to the United States

WASHINGTON—Today, Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) delivered an opening statement at a hearing titled “Made in the USA: Igniting the Industrial Renaissance of the United States.” During his remarks, Subcommittee Chairman Burlison stated that under President Donald Trump, the United States now possesses the technology, investment capital, and political resolve needed to bring manufacturing back home. He stressed that the federal government for too long has allowed the decline of American industry by tolerating cheap foreign labor, burdensome regulations, and a dysfunctional permitting system—ultimately surrendering key supply chains to the Chinese Communist Party. Alongside the Trump Administration, he noted that Congress is now taking action to advance common sense solutions that empower domestic manufacturing opportunities and bring American jobs, innovation, and production back to the United States. 

Below are Chairman Burlison’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

We are here today to discuss an issue that is becoming increasingly urgent: the future of U.S. manufacturing.

The United States is facing a need it has never faced before—the need to shake off and reverse its fall as a global leader in manufacturing. 

We won the Second World War not just because our generals were great leaders and strategists, and not just because we put so many heroic men and women on the field of battle and in support, but because we manufactured our enemies into oblivion.

The United States held approximately 40 percent of the globe’s manufacturing in 1941. After Pearl Harbor, that vast manufacturing power became the free world’s arsenal for democracy. 

For every German tank manufactured, we produced four tanks. 

For every merchant ship tonnage the Japanese built, we produced eight. 

For every aircraft carrier the Japanese deployed, we launched three. 

For every plane the combined Axis powers built, we, by ourselves, manufactured 1.5 planes.Before the war, the U.S. manufactured less than 3,000 planes, by the end of the war we had a force of 300,000 planes. 

Overwhelming material was pivotal to our winning the war, and the United States left World War Two as the most wealthy and powerful nation on earth in very large part because of our manufacturing prowess. 

Yet as time marched on and the good post-war times rolled, we began to forget how important our capacity to manufacture and innovate was to making—and keeping—America great. 

And as the Cold War ended and we entered the “end of history” era, unprecedented globalization took hold. 

In that moment, instead of embracing new technologies or innovating in the manufacturing industry, we sold off our manufacturing birthright.

A vast amount of what once was American manufacturing was shipped off to become foreign manufacturing. 

In the end, we lost most of our manufacturing base.

And that was not just because U.S. leaders supported globalization.

It was also because we overregulated existing manufacturing and imposed enormous obstacles to the permitting of new manufacturing.

This strangled possibilities for new growth and further encouraged U.S. manufacturers to move their manufacturing overseas.

In the end, the United States’ share of global manufacturing fell from the 40 percent it was in the 1950s to the 16 percent share we hold today. 

We lost millions of skilled labor jobs, the middle class shrank, and communities across America were harmed.

Filling the void the U.S. left behind in manufacturing was China. China’s share of global manufacturing increased at an exponential rate. 

China leaned heavily on cheap labor, slave labor, and suicide-inducing labor conditions to achieve the manufacturing share it possesses today.

And China’s position as the current world leader in manufacturing poses economic, military, and national security threats to the United States.

Nevertheless, there is hope we are approaching an American industrial renaissance. 

Under President Trump, the United States has the technology, the capital, and the political will to reshore manufacturing stateside. 

Congressional and Executive Branch efforts to decrease unnecessary regulatory burdens and streamline permitting processes will encourage reshoring. 

And by adopting automation and artificial intelligence, the United States can and will multiply the economic output of the average American worker exponentially. 

Salaries will rise as costs of goods stay low.

Skilled labor and manufacturing employment that was extinguished due to globalization will return.

The middle-class will expand. 

We can and will bring manufacturing back to the United States.

And, with that, I yield to Ranking Member Frost for his opening statement.