We Want to Build It Here — But Who’s Going to Do the Work

Rebuild the U.S. skilled workforce — fast, at scale, and without stigma

If we don’t fix that, everything else is window dressing.

Even during the push under Donald Trump to bring manufacturing back, companies ran into the same brick wall:

“We’d build here — if we could find people who know how.”

What that actually means (practically, not politically)

1. Trade & Technical Education Must Be Treated as Equal to College

For decades, we told kids:

College = success

Trades = failure

That was a huge mistake.

We need to:

Restore high-school vocational programs

Expand community college + industry partnerships

Normalize careers like:

CNC machinists, Tool & die makers, Industrial electricians, Robotics technicians, Maintenance engineers

These jobs:

1. Pay well, Can’t be outsourced, Can’t be replaced easily by AI, Keep factories running

2. Paid Apprenticeships (Learn While You Earn)

Germany didn’t guess their way into manufacturing dominance — they trained into it.

The U.S. needs:

Federal incentives for companies to run apprenticeships

Programs that start before age 18

Clear paths from training → job → advancement

People are far more willing to learn when:

They’re paid, They’re not drowning in debt, They see a future.

3. Automation + Humans (Not One or the Other)

This is where realism matters.

Modern U.S. manufacturing will never be labor-cheap like overseas. That ship sailed.

So the strategy must be:

Automate the repetitive work, Train Americans to:

Run the machines, Maintain them, Program them, Fix them when they break.

That creates higher-skill, higher-pay jobs — not sweatshops.

4. Fix the Perception Problem

Here’s the quiet killer:

Many young people think manufacturing = dirty, dangerous, dead-end work.

Reality:

Modern plants look more like clean tech labs

Safety is dramatically improved

The work is technical, precise, and respected

We need a national messaging reset:

Manufacturing is nation-building, Making things matters, Self-reliance is strength, not nostalgia

5. Targeted Immigration (Temporary, Skill-Specific)

This one makes people uncomfortable — but ignoring it won’t help.

Short term, we need:

Skilled tradespeople, Engineers, Technicians.

Brought in legally, selectively, and temporarily, while we train Americans to take over.

That’s not surrender — that’s a bridge strategy.

Bottom Line (The Hard Truth)

You cannot rebuild American manufacturing with:

An undertrained workforce, A college-only mindset, Or slogans without pipelines.

Factories follow skills - Not the other way around.

If the U.S. wants to depend on its own output again, the top priority is simple but not easy:

Teach Americans how to make things again — and make it a respected, well-paid path.

Everything else comes after that.

Stay safe, stay secure and let's make our country self sustaining again.

I used ChatGPT, NotebookLM, and ScreenPal to aid in putting this video together.

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You can watch a video on this topic at: https://youtu.be/RNjCalUPdfc