[blueyes]

Some authors of this piece are deeply involved themselves in building robots and other hardware technology. They should be taken seriously. The US is moving into a trade war, however unwise, with the country that supplies components for everything we make and need. That country has expansionist ambitions and a superior manufacturing base, which is typically what wins wars.

[sampton]

China has been methodically preparing for trade war and decoupling for the better part of the decade. US went in full throttle with zero preparation. This is not going to end well.

[yibg]

I wonder if this is a consequence of the political systems of China vs the US. China tends to think and plan longer term, where as the US seems much more transactional; what will win me the next election / midterm etc.

[dluan]

"Decoupling" was started in the US by the Obama administration.

[Yeul]

It's not even about China. Asia as a whole has seen massive economic growth in the last 40 years. Countries like Indonesia and Vietnam are self confident enough to no longer kow tow to America.

[toomuchtodo]

It’s the only way the US will learn.

[r00fus]

> China has been methodically preparing for trade war

Mostly because it was prompted by decoupling from the last three administrations before going full-bore in this latest Trump admin.

[fuzzfactor]

>The US once had a solid base to spin up heavy industry factories, but this withered away as cheaper overseas manufacturing cut US producers out and the American economy shifted toward leading edge technology and services.

The Americans in charge of the "economy" settled for "leading edge" technology and services.

[SergeAx]

What exactly are China's expansionist ambitions beyond obvious Taiwan and beef with India over the border in Tibet?

[rreichman]

Have you heard of the South China Sea?

[seanmcdirmid]

We can eventually automate our economy by buying software and hardware from China. By electing Trump, we basically missed the chance to lead on anything, and instead decided to engage full time in trade and culture wars that aren't really going to yield anything. But as long as the work gets done, even if in China, we should be able to enjoy it.

[Joel_Mckay]

Indeed, no one sane will invest in building factory systems on US soil under a Kakistocracy.

Robot platforms are already a difficult business model in the private sector. With the exception of robot vacuums the market just isn't viable in the US yet. Best of luck =3

[kevin_thibedeau]

The Romans used to think that way. Their subjects thought otherwise.

[sieabahlpark]

Damn, thanks for plainly stating why we need manufacturing back to the states.

[ActorNightly]

Not gonna happen. On the 1% chance we have a fair election next time around and Dems get elected, they will be too busy cleaning up the Republican mess, and nobody will notice. Just like what happened under Biden.

China ironically can end US by simply providing easy immigration for qualified tech workers.

[rtp4me]

Yes, and I think this is the core motivation behind the Trump messaging - bring it back to the US if possible. In fact, he wants to bring back commercial and maritime ship building back[1]. Pretty cool! Hopefully this will employ lots of people.

[1] https://news.usni.org/2025/03/05/trumps-make-shipbuilding-gr...

[watwut]

You could also ... try not to make war. Just an idea. Pretty offputting actually to see someone supporting expansion being upvoted.

[neuronexmachina]

I might be misreading it, but I don't think the comment you're replying to supports China's expansionist ambitions.

[flyinglizard]

No one is trying to make war, but naturally China is looking at changing the order of things, at least regionally. To make that happen it needs USA to move out, and create its own coalition of countries around the area.

[cladopa]

>That country has expansionist ambitions and a superior manufacturing base, which is typically what wins wars.

What country are you referring to. US with Greenland, and Canada?

[dingnuts]

CHINA!