Like the title says, how likely is this? I understand that the material conditions don’t really support it. Additionally, porky is just fine keeping manufacturing over-seas if it means more profit.
Obviously such a move would take decades and would be wrought with environmental havoc. But if not for profit, what if the US government sees it as strategically smart to wean it self from dependence on foreign manufacturing? What sorts of tricks could it pull to return manufacturing to the US?
Offshoring came about at a time of loosening of capital controls as well as rapidly advancing information technology such that increasing amounts of data could be captured, analyzed and managed ever more remotely.
This context allows one to see that low-level manufacturing and assembly were shifted to where labor was cheapest often in former colonies whose economies were forcibly opened to foreign investment.