Key points:
US manufacturing output is double what it was in the early 1980's.
Even if the trade deficit was zero'd out and all that manufacturing was onshore, due to automation and high productivity in American factories it would only increase factory employment as a share overall by 1%.
Modern blue collar jobs already exist in the trades. Providing more onramps to those jobs would be a far better focus of government policy than protectionism and industrial policy chasing a past that will never (and shouldn't) return.
Posted by AaminMarritza