re: Trump comes out strongly against port automation

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This is a perfect distillation of Trump and his populism versus the old GOP.

Trump comes down on the side of the American worker while free market principles really dictate the efficient allocation and application of capital on automation that doesn’t strike or renegotiate its deal every few years.

But this is a harbinger of things to come as AI and automation become more prevalent.

Your populace needs jobs to stabilize society (mainly the men). If AI and automation have taken all the labor-involved jobs, you’re going to have a whole lot of drunken dudes causing problems. It’ll be an Indian reservation on a larger scale.

You’ll have big business on one side maximizing value for shareholders by moving to automation with politicians and labor on the other side trying to save jobs for social cohesiveness purposes (the politicians) and naked power purposes (organized labor bosses).

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Might I add that automation is not possible if manufacturing is all done off shore.

We are learning that offshoring every job based on short term profit margins compromises national security. As the Chinese continue to push the envelop when it comes to manufacturing technologies, we lose our capacity to make things.

I don't agree with blocking automation to save jobs, but I do believe that retaining manufacturing base makes technological advancements possible and it makes no sense to deindustrial permanently over labor cost savings.

Example. I offshore my vacuum cleaner manufacturing business because I make more money due to cheap Vietnamese labor.
This means this industry is gone forever.

If however, due to tariffs, I retain my business here, while striving to improve efficiency, through automation and robotics, after er at few decades, we can be a world leader in vacuum cleaner manufacturing here in America through advanced automation and robotics.

This keeps our manufacturing base together and doesn't tear our labor force apart for the sake of short term profits.

Eventually, labor must be reallocate, but it is slower and more purposeful, and we can be self sufficient and make our own computer chips and antibiotics a not buy them from out enemy or fight major wars over trade and geopolitics.

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But millions won’t be able to just ride it out.

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Billions have ridden it out before. The number of jobs that have been lost to innovation in human history is uncountable. There was push back against every new tech that automated any industry.

If I’m not able to ride it out, I’ll do something else. That’s life.

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We can't go back to the old way of destroying whole towns by exporting middle class jobs.

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You'll be subsidizing industry forever.