Make America Garment (workers) Again
HHusky
Member Posts: 22,669
In the 1970s, when the Upstate region of South Carolina was known as the textile capital of the world, Adolphus Jones would clock in for grueling summer shifts at one of the many mills in Union, his hometown.
Trains roared around him, transporting materials around the country. Chimney stacks on the red brick mills stretched dozens of feet high, like flag poles. This was textile country, and the cities of Union, Spartanburg and Greenville were at the heart of it.
By the end of the 1990s, automation and cheaper labor overseas took the industry away from the state. Union’s economy cratered, as did the most of the region’s. But leaving Sunday church service on a recent afternoon, Mr. Jones, now 71 and retired, scoffed at President Trump’s vision of an American manufacturing revival through tariffs. The mill work had paid little, Mr. Jones recalled, and upward mobility was nonexistent.
“The textile industry is dead,” he said, buttoning his wool suit made in Italy. “Why would you want to bring it back here? Truthfully, why would the younger generation want to work there?”
Does a former U.S. textile capital want the industry back?
Since taking office, Mr. Trump has imposed and suspended tariffs on imports at breakneck speed, with the goal of forcing companies to bring manufacturing back to the United States. This week, he abruptly paused reciprocal tariffs for the next three months on some of America’s largest trading partners, dropping levels to a universal 10 percent, while exponentially raising tariffs on Chinese exports.
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“The textile industry is dead,” said Adolphus Jones, who worked at a mill in the 1970s. “Why would you want to bring it back here?”Credit...Will Crooks for The New York Times
But Mr. Trump’s goals have clashed with the current economic reality in places like Spartanburg and Greenville, S.C., heavily Republican areas where foreign companies have turned the onetime textile hubs into wealthy, industrial heavyweights. Should those levies go back into effect, locals worry that they will threaten the very businesses that saved the region, home to some 1.5 million residents, all to revive a bygone industry that few people miss.
Today’s NYT
Fuck Adam Smith! Right?
Comments
Yawn
tell
The failing New York Times
It’s a beautiful morning. Suns out and sparkling off of L Washington. Coffee tastes great. About to head over to Mercer Island to watch some 12U baseball….
Here you are rage-posting on an internet chat board. 😂
Start another thread, loser.
Dogs hate having their noses rubbed in their messes too.
allegedly
🥴