After ages of seeing the words “Made in China” stamped on an endless number of products, it is possible that more American goods will replace the famed label soon. With Trump’s new executive order proposing the “Buy American, Hire American” policy, it has opened the door for more changes. After visiting Snap-On Tools, a manufacturing shop in Wisconsin, Trump declared, “The buy and hire American order I’m about to sign will protect workers and students like you. It’s America first, you better believe it. It’s time.”
Trump ideally wants to bring more American jobs back, but could this lead other countries only wanting to buy their own products, too? By enforcing stricter laws, it would cause the process of making American made goods to prolong and prices to increase. The fact that the U.S also depends on exports for much of its other goods shows how dependent the country is on foreign relations. “We are going to put American-produced steel back into the backbone of our country. This alone will create massive numbers of jobs,” Rather than observing the logistics of his claim, Trump is solely relying on sensationalism. Trump hopes to bring back the steel industry to America, despite the fact that China makes up for half of the world’s steel industry. Despite the picture perfect intentions, this policy would most likely cause prices to skyrocket due to the high costs of manufacturing in America and following all the required guidelines, along with creating a longer process. “What it means is probably more for future pipeline work than the current ones,” former Nucor chief Dan DiMicco said, indicating how this will influence future pipeline projects and cause additional work for workers to spend extra time building infrastructure before being able to use it. If this is the case, how can Trump ensure that workers will be willing to complete such arduous tasks?
According to the White House website, this policy could lower the five percent unemployment rate in America and create more jobs within our economy. Additionally, it could potentially bring more business by causing foreign countries to buy more American products if our industries become a stronghold. Also, if all things go to plan, America can make a lot of money and perhaps put it to use, as he suggested during his campaign: “We are going to fix our inner cities…We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”
There are some positives to the new proposal, but other negatives like economic setbacks in production and a spike in pricing for commercial goods are something to consider. The Buy American act could be a false sense of hope, based on how fragile the process seems to be.