, Columnists
The Robot Rampage
Machines killed U.S. factory jobs. They'll do the same in emerging markets.
This article is for subscribers only.
Donald Trump tends to present the labor market as a zero-sum game: companies have shifted production to China and other emerging markets. He’s going to bring those jobs home.
Put aside for a moment how moving jobs back to a country with high costs gives companies an incentive to automate. There's a bigger problem: After displacing U.S. manufacturing workers, robots are poised to do the same in developing economies, too. It will be hard to re-shore jobs that no longer exist.