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5 Myths About the Death Of the American Factory

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Despite all the bad news, the United States still has a manufacturing sector and still produces about $4.5 trillion worth of goods a year. But we're also consuming fewer and fewer of our own products each year, and factory workers' slice of the pie is getting smaller by the month. If we don't address this problem soon, the last thing we'll be producing in America may be paper. After all, we have abundant forests, clean water and a dedicated work force with generations of experience in the art of paper-making.

And yet, given all the downsides -- foreign companies raking in tax benefits and government subsidies, currency differentials that provide foreign exporters with a 40 percent break on their sales, complex trade laws -- why make anything in this country at all? It'd be easier to disassemble the paper mills, pack the equipment in enormous wooden crates and send it off to China -- probably on the same cargo ships that, in time, will carry massive rolls of paper back to our shores.

gkaplan@kslaw.com

Gilbert B. Kaplan is a partner in the international trade practice of King & Spalding in Washington.

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