Yes, lack of manufacturing capacity in western nations is the root of the problem, not the particular technological fetish de jour. This is the chickens coming home to roost of chasing shareholder value maximisation rather than keeping some spare capacity in the system for a rainy day.

China is not the enemy, we should work with them to build a healthy middle class existence for all the world's citizens. Having one a country mono-culture doing the lions share of the advanced manufacturing is just asking for another dark age when that society suffers a catastrophe.

I’d like to believe this vision of superpowers working together for the betterment of humanity. But I feel like the moment anyone gets a slight advantage they leverage that to squeeze everyone else - economically, technologically, fiscally, geopolitically, you name it.

As is having one country doing the lion’s share of advanced software. No?

> Yes, lack of manufacturing capacity in western nations is the root of the problem

The reality here is this quickly leads to a discussion about regulations some people would be furious at the even the thought of re-examining.

> This requires a supply chain that the US no longer has, AFAIK....and its non-trivial to clone it.

The US (and other countries) lost much of its electronics supply chain (and manufacturing in general) due to political priorities, and it can regain it by shifting those priorities and enacting new policy. This idea of "it's gone and never coming back" is false and a result of an over-attachment to certain ideas and certain policies.

>it can regain it by shifting those priorities and enacting new policy

that would require a fundamental rethinking of economics and trade away from free-marketeering towards an understanding more similar to the Chinese who put these questions into the context of national (security) interest, and that is very unlikely to happen, in particular in the US in which private interest groups wield significant power over a largely weak and incoherent government. In Europe, it may be possible if France would have more of a say but countries like Germany or the Netherlands would be significantly hurt by the inevitable retaliation so it's probably a nonstarter here too.

It feels to me like the US as a whole is getting more protectionist over the last decade, and that the free trade everyone is welcome, export to our market for free is seeing some massive attacks.

This is a feeling shared by both the left and right in the populist portions of both parties.

People are looking for ways to get more solid middle class jobs back into the USA, and protectionist trade policy is an obvious place to start for many.

Prior to Bretton Woods there had never been a system of free trade between (nearly) all countries enforced by a singular superpower.

There's nothing fundamental saying that America won't swerve away from providing the service of protecting and enforcing global trade. If that ever happens, it will have many serious consequences, but the US could still decide it is in its best interest.

> ...in the US in which private interest groups wield significant power...

AFAIK, those interest groups don't actually wield very much power, but they've been very effective at promoting the fatalistic attitude that their favored polices are inevitable and permanent.

For proof, look at the current president who started a major tariff war that was very much against a major leg of free-market policy. What paused it wasn't those interest groups, it was political uncertainty caused by retaliation that targeted farm states by the other party in that war.

Unless the manufacturing industry was heavily subsidized I doubt it could compete with the Chinese.

it is not just political priorities. either the onshored industries would have to be as competitive as those in asia and europe, or they would have be subsidized. these are not trivial matters.

Or they could be neither but protected by tariffs or other means. The decision is one about political priorities, in this case: free trade vs. other considerations.

Arduino was originally Italian, made in EU. There are modern power tools, car electronics, and coffee machines made in Hungary - I'm only listing the ones I know for sure. The components however - IC, resistor, capacitor, etc - are nearly all from China.

Semiconductor fabs, especially for high-tech stuff, still are somewhat spread around the world at least (even though the later chain isn't, i.e. you might see a fab in Germany, and the cut wafers then being flown to Vietnam to put them in the plastic IC cases because that's cheaper).

For simpler components (resistors, capacitors) special types still have some manufacturers in the west (e.g. high-precision, especially robust variations, ...). Cheap mass-production not so much.

I remember trying to find out if you can get EU-made LEDs, and the result was that maybe some high-power ones by OSRAM would fit the bill, but it wasn't clear what was made where.

You can get LEDs from Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan. You just don't get the same level of quality that you get from top-end Chinese manufacturers that way. Similarly passives are often made in Mexico (to bypass US tariffs), Vietnam, Malaysia again, Thailand. But the most consistent quality product at large quantities still comes from China.

Japanese LEDs, eg Nichia seem to be pretty high quality: https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-gamut.shtml

Yep, Nichia LEDs are excellent. But I prefer Chinese manufacturers for LEDs - they're much easier to deal with and quality is good and consistent and availability is great. I recently had some LED emitters custom made in China (low quantity) and the light properties are exactly to spec. I wanted a combination of cri and color temp that wasn't available off the shelf in that form factor. At the quantities I wanted, nobody outside China would even talk to me, but I had several options to choose from in China and the first one I talked to delivered, exactly to spec, exactly on time.

Japan still has components if I'm not mistaken, LEDs especially.

> I mean, do know of any electronics still made in the USA?

Most Intel chips are still being made in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...

This shift is largely due to the cost of human capital. If automation advances exponentially like many believe it will, should we expect much of this manufacturing to move back to the US? At that point, shipping would probably be the largest variable cost in getting goods to market.

No, shipping is such a small component of most product costs that it can never have a huge effect. (Except perhaps for heavy, bulky low value goods.)