Only Robots Can Bring Factories Back to U.S., Says Bike Pioneer
- America risks getting left behind as rivals back automation
- That’s where Trump, Biden should focus, says S.C. bike-maker
While people fear automation will cut jobs, Kamler says that overall he’ll have to hire more workers to tend to the robots he plans to buy..
Courtesy: Kent International Inc.
How to bring manufacturing back to America has been a hot-button issue in the presidential election. Arnold Kamler, who has the same goal for his family-owned bicycle business, says both candidates are going about it the wrong way -- talking about tariffs or taxes, when they should be smoothing the road for robots.
Kent Bicycles employs about 150 people at a plant in Manning, South Carolina that Kamler opened six years ago. The company still does most of its manufacturing in China and Taiwan, and even this partial reshoring was a risky venture that went against the tide. Kamler would like to take it further, and quadruple his U.S. output to 1 million bikes a year. But he says he’s not getting the kind of government help he needs.
President Donald Trump has tried to boost manufacturing by slapping tariffs on imports from China and other countries. In the election, both Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden are promising to use the tax system to bring factories home -- with a mixture of incentives for companies that do, and penalties on those who produce elsewhere.
“Everyone on both sides likes to make big announcements of taxes and tariffs -– that doesn’t help,” says Kamler. Industrialists in America’s rivals, from China to South Korea and Japan, get substantial help from politicians when they seek to upgrade plants to make better use of robot technology, he says. “The very first thing the U.S. government should do is to help U.S. companies automate.”
America already has one of the lowest rates of automation among the world’s top industrial powers.