Buy American Campaign

Tag: American Jobs

  • Stop Telling Young People to Learn a Trade—Show Them a Future

    Stop Telling Young People to Learn a Trade—Show Them a Future

    Young American manufacturing apprentice learning CNC machining from an experienced mentor

    Whenever the manufacturing workforce shortage comes up, someone offers the same solution: young people should learn a trade. The advice is usually delivered as though millions of teenagers simply forgot that factories exist. But if America wants more manufacturing careers for young people, it must do more than lecture them. It must show them a future worth choosing.

    Young Americans did not eliminate high-school shop programs, replace apprenticeships with online applications demanding three years of experience, or allow entry-level wages to fall behind local housing costs. Adults, institutions and employers built that system. Blaming the generation asked to navigate it is convenient, but it does not produce a single machinist.

    The Jobs Are Real, but the Path Is Hard to See

    The need is not imaginary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 30,400 openings for machinists and tool-and-die makers every year through 2035, largely as experienced workers retire or change occupations. Median 2025 pay was $58,750 for machinists and $64,050 for tool-and-die makers.

    Those occupations make the precision parts, molds and tools behind nearly everything else America hopes to manufacture. Yet ask a typical high-school student how to become a tool-and-die maker, and the answer is far less obvious than the path to a four-year college.

    We Removed the First Rung of the Ladder

    A career becomes believable when a young person can see where it begins. That used to mean a shop class, a summer job, a plant tour, a neighbor who worked at the factory or an employer willing to train a beginner. In too many communities, those points of contact disappeared.

    Then employers began describing a “skills gap” while advertising supposedly entry-level positions that required experience newcomers had no way to acquire. You cannot demand finished workers from a training system nobody is willing to fund.

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    Manufacturing Careers for Young People Need Proof

    A poster saying “great careers are waiting” is not proof. A paid apprentice standing beside a skilled mentor is proof. A wage schedule showing how competency leads to higher pay is proof. So is a former operator who became a programmer, supervisor or production engineer.

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology describes manufacturing apprenticeships as paid on-the-job learning combined with technical instruction. Its Manufacturing Extension Partnership reports that 91 percent of apprentices remain with the employer that trained them. That is not charity; it is a practical way to build and retain talent.

    Modern Manufacturing Is Not the Career Adults Remember

    Many parents still picture manufacturing as repetitive, dirty work inside a fading plant. Some jobs do remain physically demanding, and employers should be honest about that. But modern machinists also read digital models, program CNC equipment, use computerized measuring systems and work with tolerances smaller than a human hair.

    Automation does not eliminate the need for skill; it changes the skill. Somebody must install the equipment, understand the process, diagnose failures, improve production and decide whether the finished part is right. These careers combine judgment, mathematics, technology and physical results in a way many young people would find deeply satisfying—if they ever saw the work.

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    Employers Must Make the Offer Worth Believing

    Respect cannot exist only in recruiting slogans. A manufacturer asking a nineteen-year-old to commit to a difficult craft should offer predictable advancement, useful training, competent supervision and wages that make adult life possible. Loyalty is earned in both directions.

    Companies also need to open their doors. Invite students and parents into clean, operating facilities. Let apprentices explain their work without a public-relations script. Publish the starting wage, the training sequence and what a capable worker can earn after three or five years. Specificity makes a career real.

    Schools Should Restore More Than a Shop Class

    Putting a lathe in a classroom is useful, but the larger goal is to reconnect education with local production. Schools, community colleges and manufacturers should share equipment, instructors and work-based learning opportunities. Students should be able to earn credit, industry credentials and a paycheck along the same path.

    College should remain available to anyone who wants it. But treating every alternative as a consolation prize has harmed students and the country. A young adult who can make a precision aerospace component is not someone who “failed to go to college.” That person possesses a valuable capability America cannot purchase from a motivational speech.

    Stop Scolding and Start Building

    Young people are constantly told to make practical choices. They are watching costs, wages, working conditions and whether an employer appears willing to invest in them. That is practical.

    If America wants the next generation to build aircraft, medical devices, machine tools and energy systems, the invitation must include a visible starting point and a credible destination. Restore the ladder. Pay people while they learn. Show them the technology, the mentors and the lives these careers can support.

    Then we can stop telling young people to learn a trade. They will be able to see the future for themselves.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • America Forgot How to Make Things. This 26-Year-Old Founder Is Fixing That.

    America Forgot How to Make Things. This 26-Year-Old Founder Is Fixing That.

    Young American manufacturing founder overseeing a robotic investment casting foundry

    America did not forget how to design aircraft, data centers or advanced energy systems. It forgot how to make many of the unglamorous metal parts that allow those systems to work. At Rangeview’s American foundry in El Segundo, California, 26-year-old founder Cameron Schiller is trying to rebuild that missing capability.

    Rangeview is not creating another app that promises to “disrupt manufacturing.” It is melting metal. Its workers combine investment casting, 3D-printed ceramic molds, robotics and software to produce precision parts for aerospace, defense, energy and advanced technology customers.

    The company’s story is compelling because it begins with something America has spent decades losing: the neighborhood machine shop. Schiller grew up near the former Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Southern California, surrounded by the remains of an industrial culture that once built astonishing things close to home.

    A Founder Who Wanted to Build Something Physical

    Schiller grew up taking things apart, rebuilding rooms and experimenting with machines. He later won a robotics world championship and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, but the conventional technology path did not hold his attention.

    Rangeview began in a garage in 2020. According to a recent profile by Pirate Wires, the company is now operating inside an aging brick industrial building where molten metal, robotic arms and young engineers share the floor.

    That combination matters. Much of the American technology economy has rewarded people for building software that captures attention or moves information. Rangeview is attracting young technical talent to a harder assignment: moving metal and delivering physical parts.

    Why American Foundries Became a Bottleneck

    Investment casting is an ancient process with modern consequences. Manufacturers form a detailed mold, pour in molten metal and finish the resulting component to precise specifications. The process can create complex turbine, aircraft and industrial parts that are difficult to machine from a solid block.

    Traditional casting often depends on specialized dies and tooling that take months to design, build and qualify. When an older Navy vessel or aircraft needs a replacement part and the original tooling no longer exists, the delay can keep important equipment out of service.

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    How Rangeview’s American Foundry Works Differently

    Rangeview replaces much of that physical tooling with digital files and 3D-printed ceramic molds. The company says its software-defined process can compress the journey from design to a first finished article from months to weeks.

    Inside the foundry, an ingot is heated to roughly 2,000 degrees and poured by robotic equipment into a custom mold. Automation handles dangerous, repetitive steps while engineers and production workers monitor the process, improve reliability and prepare it for higher-volume manufacturing.

    This is what advanced manufacturing should mean: not a factory without people, but a factory where people use better tools to produce difficult parts safely, consistently and quickly.

    The U.S. Navy Needs Parts That No One Makes Anymore

    In August, Rangeview announced a major U.S. Navy contract to produce maintenance, repair and overhaul replacement parts. The work addresses a basic readiness problem: sophisticated equipment can be sidelined by a relatively small component that has become slow or impossible to source.

    The challenge is larger than one contract. American casting capacity has declined as infrastructure aged, work moved offshore and experienced foundry workers retired without enough younger workers behind them. Rebuilding the capability means preserving knowledge while redesigning the job for a new generation.

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    A Factory Can Give a Town More Than Paychecks

    Schiller’s ambition extends beyond a single Southern California facility. He has spoken about building factories across the American plains and becoming part of a real factory town—a place where the company and community grow together.

    That vision is important because manufacturing provides something difficult to measure on a balance sheet. Workers can point to what they made. Families see the plant supporting suppliers, restaurants, schools and skilled careers. A town gains an identity tied to useful work.

    Modern foundries should be cleaner, safer and more technologically capable than the plants of the past. But they can still create the same sense of shared purpose that existed when a community knew exactly what it contributed to the country.

    Reindustrialization Requires Actual Factories

    America has no shortage of manufacturing conferences, strategy papers and software tools. Schiller’s blunt argument is that none of them substitutes for factories that make parts. Reindustrialization ultimately requires furnaces, equipment, materials, trained people and customers willing to place orders.

    Rangeview is still a young company, and scaling a foundry is far more difficult than scaling a website. That is exactly why its effort deserves attention. The country needs founders willing to confront physical constraints instead of treating them as someone else’s problem.

    If Rangeview succeeds, its most important product may not be a particular turbine component or Navy replacement part. It may be proof that a new generation of Americans can learn to make difficult things again—and build communities around that work.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • When “Made in USA” Becomes a Reason Not to Buy

    When “Made in USA” Becomes a Reason Not to Buy

    Canadian shopper examining a Made in USA product during a boycott of American products

    The Canadian boycott of American products has turned three familiar words into a warning label for some shoppers: Made in USA. In grocery aisles across Canada, consumers are checking packages, changing brands and sometimes walking away when the only choice is American.

    That should matter to anyone who cares about American manufacturing. The same idea behind the Buy American movement—that ordinary purchases affect real workers—does not stop working when the shopper lives on the other side of the border.

    According to recent reporting by The Guardian, a July Angus Reid survey found that 40 percent of Canadian grocery shoppers were actively checking where products came from. Most of those label-checkers were avoiding U.S. products whenever possible.

    The Canadian Boycott of American Products Is Personal

    This is not simply a government tariff schedule that consumers will never see. Thousands of Canadians have described changing their weekly routines: choosing Canadian-grown food, replacing familiar American brands and reconsidering vacations in the United States.

    The emotional intensity is what makes this different from an ordinary trade dispute. People are using purchases to express frustration with the United States, just as many Americans use purchases to express support for domestic workers.

    Once a household finds a replacement it likes, that lost sale may not return when the headlines fade. Shopping habits harden quickly. Shelf space, distributor relationships and brand loyalty can take years to win back.

    The Label Suddenly Matters

    For decades, many companies treated country-of-origin information like fine print. Now it can determine whether a product reaches the checkout counter. Canadian retailers have responded with shelf labels, signs and displays that make locally produced alternatives easier to identify.

    That is a lesson worth bringing home. American shoppers routinely say they would prefer to support American workers, but locating genuinely domestic products can be unnecessarily difficult. Clear labeling works because it turns a broad economic belief into a decision someone can make in seconds.

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    American Workers Feel an Overseas Boycott at Home

    Canada is one of the largest customers for American-made goods. When Canadian shoppers stop buying a Wisconsin food product, an Ohio appliance or a Michigan auto part, the economic effect eventually returns to the plant that made it.

    The damage is rarely dramatic enough to appear immediately in a factory announcement. It arrives quietly: a Canadian distributor trims an order, a retailer gives more shelf space to a domestic competitor, or a sales forecast no longer justifies adding a second shift. Those decisions eventually reach machinists, packers, truck drivers and suppliers far from the border.

    Exports help domestic factories run longer production lines, purchase more material and support more jobs than the U.S. market alone might sustain. Losing even a modest share of Canadian demand can be painful for a smaller manufacturer that spent years building distribution there.

    Canada has also announced retaliatory tariffs covering hundreds of American goods, including food, clothing, cosmetics, appliances, paper products and industrial materials. Those duties can make an American product significantly more expensive before a shopper even considers the flag on its package.

    Consumer Patriotism Cuts Both Ways

    There is an uncomfortable truth here: Americans cannot celebrate consumer patriotism at home and dismiss it as meaningless when Canadians practice it. Both movements rest on the same premise. Where people spend their money influences which communities get the work.

    The answer is not to criticize Canadians for checking labels. It is to understand the signal. American manufacturers need competitive products, dependable quality and relationships strong enough to survive political turbulence they did not create.

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    What American Manufacturers Can Learn

    First, origin has become part of a product’s identity. Companies should be precise and transparent about what they make in the United States, where the materials come from and how domestic production supports workers.

    Second, manufacturers cannot rely on patriotism alone. A label may earn a first look, but quality, service and value earn the next purchase. The strongest American-made brands give customers practical reasons to remain loyal even when politics changes the mood.

    Finally, the boycott demonstrates how quickly millions of small choices become economic pressure. No single shopper closes a production line. But coordinated demand—or coordinated refusal—can alter inventory decisions throughout a supply chain.

    A Reminder for American Shoppers

    If Canadians can turn country-of-origin checking into a widespread habit, Americans can do the same in support of their own workers. That does not require rejecting every imported product or turning the grocery store into a political battlefield.

    It begins with noticing. Read the label, learn which companies still manufacture here and choose the domestic option when it fits your needs and budget. The Canadian boycott is proof that shoppers are not powerless—and that manufacturers pay attention when enough people make the same choice.

    The larger lesson is not that neighbors must become enemies. It is that consumer trust is valuable, fragile and difficult to rebuild. American companies that employ American workers deserve trade relationships—and informed customers—that recognize what is at stake.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • Dan River Mills: When a Factory Was a Town

    Dan River Mills: When a Factory Was a Town

    Historical reconstruction of workers and looms at Dan River Mills

    For generations in Danville, Virginia, Dan River Mills was more than a factory. It was where parents met, where children expected to work, where paychecks filled local stores and where the rhythm of looms helped set the rhythm of an entire town.

    At its wartime peak, Dan River employed about 14,000 people in a city of roughly 40,000. The numbers are remarkable, but they only hint at the mill’s reach. A factory that large did not sit beside the community. It shaped the community.

    A Mill Built Beside the Dan River

    The story began in 1882, when six local men established Riverside Cotton Mills on the banks of the Dan River. Four mills rose during the company’s first decade, powered by a region eager to turn Southern cotton into finished American cloth.

    Riverside merged with the Dan River Power and Manufacturing Company in 1909. By then, annual cloth production had climbed from about 2 million yards in 1884 to more than 78 million yards. Sheetings, ginghams and chambrays carried Danville’s work far beyond Virginia.

    When the Factory Became the Community

    Like many Southern textile companies, Dan River built housing to attract and retain workers. The mill village of Schoolfield included homes, churches, recreation and the everyday relationships that grow when thousands of families share the same employer.

    Company-town life was never simple. Conditions could be harsh, and workers fought difficult battles over wages and control of their jobs. Major strikes in 1930 and 1951 ended in defeat. Still, residents remembered the closeness of a place where work and community were inseparable.

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    Fourteen Thousand Workers During World War II

    Military orders pushed the mills into extraordinary production during World War II. By 1942, Dan River operated twelve weaving and spinning mills along with dyeing, bleaching, finishing and power plants. Nearly half a million spindles fed the largest textile operation in the region.

    The mill’s 14,000 workers represented more than one out of every three people living in Danville—not merely one out of every three workers. After the war, civilian demand kept the company growing. Acquisitions lifted companywide employment above 18,000 by 1956.

    What a Manufacturing Paycheck Multiplies Into

    Every mill job supported more than the person standing at a loom. Wages paid grocers, mechanics, barbers and builders. The company needed suppliers, rail service, maintenance and transportation. Schools and public services depended on an economy anchored by productive work.

    That multiplier is easy to overlook when a factory is reduced to an employment number. In a manufacturing town, the plant’s health becomes visible in storefronts, home values, civic groups and children’s expectations about whether they can build a future close to family.

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    The Long Retreat of American Textiles

    Imported textiles began taking market share from American manufacturers in the 1960s. Dan River initially answered with technology and investment, trying to produce more efficiently while keeping its domestic operations competitive.

    By the 1990s and early 2000s, imports from Latin America and Asia were arriving in volumes the domestic industry could not withstand. Employment declined, facilities closed and Dan River entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in March 2004.

    The Final Jobs Went Overseas

    Dan River emerged from bankruptcy, but survival was brief. In 2006, an Indian company purchased the business, closed the main mill and transferred the remaining work overseas. Encyclopedia Virginia records the final move as the loss of hundreds of remaining jobs; historical accounts differ on whether the last transfer involved roughly 500 or as many as 1,100 positions.

    The exact final count does not change the outcome. A company that had manufactured American textiles for more than a century no longer made its products in the United States. The brand survived. The production community did not.

    Danville Had to Become Something Else

    The physical landscape changed too. The familiar smokestacks came down in 2008. Former mill property sat vacant or moved toward new uses while Danville worked to rebuild an economy once dominated by textiles and tobacco.

    Today, the former White Mill has become Dan River Falls, a mixed-use redevelopment with residential, office and commercial space. Schoolfield is receiving new investment, and Danville has earned recognition for its comeback. That reinvention deserves respect.

    Redevelopment Is Not the Same as Production

    A restored building can preserve history and create valuable new activity. It cannot recreate the industrial ecosystem that once trained generations, supported suppliers and shipped tangible goods across the country. A casino, apartment or office may reuse a site, but it does different economic work.

    Dan River Mills is not an argument that every old factory should have remained unchanged forever. It is a warning about treating productive capacity as disposable. Once machinery, skills, supplier networks and customer relationships disappear, rebuilding them is far harder than closing a gate.

    Remember the People Behind the Label

    For consumers, Dan River’s story gives a familiar label a human scale. “Made in USA” was thousands of people in Danville reporting for shifts, learning trades, raising families and spending wages in the place they called home.

    We cannot reverse every closure. We can decide that the next factory matters before it becomes a memory. Choosing American-made products, asking retailers where goods are produced and supporting companies that invest here are modest acts—but they help keep today’s manufacturing towns from becoming tomorrow’s historical exhibits.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • World’s Largest Electric Aircraft Makes Historic First Flight in New York

    World’s Largest Electric Aircraft Makes Historic First Flight in New York

    Made in USA Heart Aerospace X1 electric aircraft taking off in Plattsburgh, New York

    The world’s largest electric aircraft has completed its first flight, and this milestone aircraft was made in the USA. Heart Aerospace’s full-scale X1 demonstrator lifted off from Plattsburgh International Airport in upstate New York on August 12, 2026, turning years of American engineering, manufacturing, ground tests, and regulatory work into 27 minutes of battery-powered flight.

    The aircraft climbed to 1,100 feet while its electric propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power. Heart says the electricity used during the flight cost about $5. That figure does not make the X1 a finished airliner, but it gives the aviation industry a striking glimpse of what electric propulsion could eventually mean for regional travel.

    A 25,000-Pound Aircraft Leaves the Ground

    The X1 is not a small experimental plane. It has a 106-foot wingspan, stretches 76 feet from nose to tail, and weighed more than 25,000 pounds at takeoff. That scale is why Heart describes it as the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown.

    The first mission was deliberately controlled. Conducted under an FAA Special Airworthiness Certificate in the Experimental Category, the test included taxi, takeoff, climb, maneuvering, and landing. The point was not to set a speed or altitude record. It was to begin learning how a clean-sheet electric aircraft of this size behaves in the air.

    Built and Tested in the United States

    Heart Aerospace is headquartered in California, and the X1 program now connects several pieces of American aviation infrastructure. The demonstrator flew from Plattsburgh, New York, after more than a year of collaboration with the FAA. Heart is also developing its first pre-production ES-30 at a pilot manufacturing facility in Los Angeles.

    That matters beyond one airplane. New aircraft programs require engineers, technicians, software specialists, test pilots, suppliers, and manufacturing teams. If hybrid-electric regional aviation reaches commercial service, the industrial opportunity will be measured not only in aircraft sold but in the skilled work required to build, certify, maintain, and improve them.

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    The World’s Largest Electric Aircraft Is a Testbed

    The X1 itself is not the passenger aircraft Heart plans to sell. It is a technology demonstrator built to validate electric propulsion, aerodynamics, flight controls, structural behavior, battery systems, and the procedures needed to operate an electrified aircraft safely.

    Heart’s commercial goal is the ES-30, a 30-passenger regional aircraft with both electric and hybrid capability. The company lists a planned all-electric range of 125 miles and an extended hybrid range of 500 miles, with a targeted 30-minute charging time. Type certification is currently targeted for 2031, and a pre-production aircraft is expected to begin flight testing in 2028.

    Why Regional Aviation Is the Starting Point

    Batteries still carry far less usable energy per pound than aviation fuel, which makes long-distance electric flight especially difficult. Short regional routes offer a more realistic place to begin. Aircraft can return to charging infrastructure frequently, and many trips connect smaller communities that have lost convenient air service.

    Heart says the ES-30 could reduce operating costs for regional airlines by more than 40 percent. That remains a company projection, not a result proven in commercial service. Still, the X1’s first flight puts real hardware behind the idea and gives engineers flight data that computer models and ground tests cannot fully provide.

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    Big Commitments, Bigger Work Ahead

    United Airlines, Air Canada, and JSX are among the carriers that have expressed interest in the ES-30. Heart reports $9.4 billion in customer commitments. Those commitments signal demand, but they do not erase the difficult path between a demonstrator’s first flight and a certified aircraft carrying paying passengers.

    The next several years will involve repeated flight testing, design changes, production development, and close regulatory scrutiny. Range, battery life, charging infrastructure, weight, reliability, and economics all have to work together. Aviation rewards careful progress, and the safest reading of this milestone is not that electric air travel has arrived—it is that one of its largest experiments is finally airborne.

    A First Flight Worth Watching

    Twenty-seven minutes at 1,100 feet may sound modest next to a conventional airline route. For a newly built 25,000-pound battery-electric aircraft, it is a serious engineering milestone. The X1 took a concept that existed in drawings, simulations, and ground tests and proved that it could take off, maneuver, and land under its own electric power.

    The most encouraging part of the story is not the $5 electricity bill by itself. It is the American engineering and manufacturing ecosystem forming around a new kind of regional aircraft. If Heart can turn what it learns from X1 into a safe and economical ES-30, this first flight could be remembered as an early step toward rebuilding short-haul aviation closer to home.

    That possibility deserves both enthusiasm and patience. Commercial aviation changes slowly because safety has to come first. The X1 has now supplied the proof that matters at this stage: a large battery-electric aircraft designed around new systems can leave an American runway, complete its planned test profile, and return safely with useful data for the next flight.

    Sources: Yahoo Tech/InsideEVs and Heart Aerospace.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • SEG Solar Opens 4 GW Texas Factory, Adding Up to 800 Jobs

    SEG Solar Opens 4 GW Texas Factory, Adding Up to 800 Jobs

    Workers manufacturing solar panels at SEG Solar's Texas factory

    SEG Solar has opened a new 4-gigawatt solar-panel factory in Tomball, Texas, expanding American manufacturing capacity with an investment of more than $200 million and plans for up to 800 jobs. The August 7 grand opening turned a major expansion promise into an operating facility built to supply solar projects across the United States.

    The nearly 500,000-square-foot plant is SEG Solar’s second U.S. module factory. Together with its first Houston-area operation, it raises the company’s annual domestic module capacity to approximately 6 GW—enough manufacturing scale to matter in a market long dependent on overseas production.

    A 4 GW Texas Solar Factory Moves From Plan to Production

    SEG announced the Tomball project in May and held its grand opening only three months later. Commercial production is expected during the third quarter of 2026, giving the Houston-headquartered company a much larger platform for serving utility, commercial and residential customers.

    The plant is designed for flexibility as solar technology changes. SEG says its production lines can integrate next-generation heterojunction, or HJT, technology, which combines different semiconductor layers to improve panel efficiency and performance.

    Up to 800 American Manufacturing Jobs

    The employment number deserves attention. Up to 800 new jobs could include production operators, maintenance technicians, quality specialists, engineers, logistics workers and supervisors. Those positions create paychecks inside the factory and additional demand for nearby suppliers and local businesses.

    Modern solar manufacturing is highly automated, but it is not workerless. Equipment must be installed, programmed, maintained and improved. Materials have to be tracked, panels inspected and production problems solved by people with practical technical skills.

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    Why Domestic Solar-Panel Production Matters

    Solar panels are becoming part of America’s essential energy infrastructure. Producing more modules domestically can shorten delivery times, improve traceability and reduce exposure to disruptions that occur when too much of a supply chain is concentrated overseas.

    Domestic manufacturing also keeps more of the value created by new energy projects in American communities. The benefits extend beyond where panels are installed to include the people who assemble, test, package and ship them.

    American-Owned Does Not Mean Every Component Is Domestic

    SEG describes itself as a 100% U.S.-owned manufacturer headquartered in Houston. That is an important distinction, but buyers should still understand the full supply chain. The company assembles modules in Texas while developing upstream ingot and wafer capacity in Indonesia.

    This does not erase the value of American module production. It does show why precise language matters. “American-made solar panels” can describe meaningful domestic manufacturing even when some raw materials or components originate elsewhere. The long-term opportunity is to localize more stages of production here.

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    A Third Texas Factory Is Already Underway

    SEG is not stopping at 6 GW. The company has broken ground on a third Greater Houston facility planned at approximately 1.15 million square feet, including factory and warehouse space. Construction is projected to finish in March 2027, with commercial production expected in May 2027.

    That third plant would add 4.6 GW of annual capacity and bring SEG’s planned U.S. total to 10.6 GW. It is expected to focus primarily on high-efficiency HJT modules, while SEG is also evaluating American sites for a dedicated solar-cell factory.

    Texas Is Becoming a Manufacturing Center

    The Houston region has long been associated with oil, gas and petrochemicals. Solar manufacturing adds another chapter to that industrial history. The same strengths that support traditional energy—skilled trades, engineering talent, freight networks and large industrial sites—can also support factories producing newer energy technologies.

    That overlap matters because an energy transition should create durable American work, not simply replace one set of imported products with another. Communities benefit most when investment includes factories, technical training and long-term supplier relationships, not only construction projects.

    Customers Can Strengthen the Domestic Market

    Large developers and commercial buyers influence where manufacturers invest. When purchasers ask where modules are assembled, how components are sourced and what labor supports production, they reward companies that build transparent domestic operations.

    Consumers can ask similar questions when considering rooftop solar. Country-of-origin claims can be complicated, so buyers should request specific information about module assembly and major components. Better questions create stronger incentives for companies to keep moving production closer to home.

    The Bigger Test Is Sustainable Production

    Factory openings generate headlines, but sustained output creates lasting impact. The Tomball plant must ramp safely, meet quality targets, win customer orders and retain its workforce. If it does, the operation can strengthen the case for manufacturing more of America’s energy equipment at home.

    SEG’s expansion is a concrete example of domestic manufacturing responding to real demand. A U.S.-owned company has invested more than $200 million in Texas, opened a major production site and created a path toward hundreds of manufacturing jobs. That is progress worth recognizing—and a reminder that American energy independence also depends on American production capacity.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • Nobody Ever Says, “I Wish We Still Made Less”

    Nobody Ever Says, “I Wish We Still Made Less”

    A thriving American factory town

    Try a thought experiment.

    Picture a town where a factory just announced it’s hiring 1,000 people.

    The restaurants are packed at lunchtime.
    The coffee shop opens earlier because the first shift starts at six.
    A local contractor hires more workers.
    The hardware store is busier than it’s been in years.
    Young families are buying homes.
    The school is adding classrooms instead of closing them.
    Property values are rising.
    The city is fixing roads instead of postponing repairs.

    Now ask yourself one question.

    Who looks at that town and says, “This is terrible. I wish we still made less.”

    Nobody.

    Because deep down, we already know something we’ve somehow forgotten.

    Manufacturing isn’t nostalgia.
    It’s prosperity.

    We Don’t Celebrate Empty Factories

    People often argue about manufacturing as though it’s some sentimental attachment to the past.

    Old mills.
    Black-and-white photographs.
    Grandpa’s lunchbox.
    Rusty smokestacks.

    But nobody drives past an abandoned factory and thinks,
    “At least imported toasters are cheaper.”

    What they notice is something else.

    The empty parking lot.
    The weeds growing through the pavement.
    The boarded-up storefront across the street.
    The “For Sale” signs that have been there for years.

    Manufacturing isn’t remembered because people are nostalgic.
    It’s remembered because people remember what life was like when the jobs were still there.

    Prosperity Has a Look

    You don’t need an economics degree to recognize a thriving town.
    You know it when you see it.

    The restaurants are full.
    The coffee shop has a line out the door before sunrise.
    Construction crews are building houses instead of demolishing them.
    Kids come back after college because there are careers waiting for them.
    The Little League has enough volunteers.
    The high school doesn’t struggle to keep teachers.
    Main Street has businesses opening instead of closing.

    Nobody describes that place as being “over-industrialized.”
    They call it successful.

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    Manufacturing Builds Confidence

    There’s something else factories create that never shows up in government statistics.

    Confidence.

    The confidence to buy a home.
    To start a business.
    To raise a family.
    To hire another employee.
    To believe your children might have an even better future than you did.

    Communities don’t thrive because everyone becomes wealthy overnight.
    They thrive because enough people have steady work that they can plan for tomorrow.

    Manufacturing has always been one of the strongest builders of that kind of confidence.

    Every Community Wants One

    Think about the announcements that communities celebrate.

    A new semiconductor plant.
    An aircraft factory.
    A steel mill expanding.
    A battery plant.
    An appliance manufacturer opening another production line.

    Notice what nobody ever celebrates.

    A factory closing.
    A thousand jobs leaving.
    A supplier shutting its doors.
    A community becoming more dependent on products made somewhere else.

    No mayor ever cuts a ribbon for fewer manufacturing jobs.
    No chamber of commerce issues a press release celebrating another empty industrial park.

    When communities compete with one another, what are they trying to attract?

    Factories.

    Not because factories are old-fashioned.
    Because they’re engines of opportunity.

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    We Already Know the Answer

    For years we’ve debated whether manufacturing still matters.

    Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question.

    Instead ask this:

    If a factory announced tomorrow that it was opening in your town, creating 800 good-paying jobs, would anyone complain?

    Would anyone say,
    “I wish they had built it somewhere else.”

    Or would people celebrate?

    Would local businesses prepare for more customers?
    Would young families start looking at houses?
    Would high school graduates think twice before moving away?

    We already know the answer.
    Because we’ve seen it happen.

    More Than What We Make

    Manufacturing isn’t important simply because it produces things.

    It’s important because of what it produces beyond the products.

    Careers.
    Skills.
    Businesses.
    Tax revenue.
    Homeownership.
    Community pride.
    Generational opportunity.

    Those things don’t arrive in shipping containers.
    They grow where people build things together.

    The Question That Answers Itself

    Every time a company announces a new American factory, the headlines are overwhelmingly positive.

    More jobs.
    More investment.
    More opportunity.
    More hope.

    Nobody reads those stories and thinks,
    “This would all be better if we produced less.”

    That’s because manufacturing has never really been about factories.
    It’s about whether a community has the chance to build a future instead of simply consuming one.

    We’ve spent years arguing about where products should be made.
    Perhaps the better question is much simpler.

    If making more things here makes our communities stronger…

    Why would we ever wish to make less?

    Related reading: Every “Made in USA” Label Represents Someone’s Tuesday — the people behind the label.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • Foxlink Opens Its First U.S. AI Factory in Fort Worth

    Foxlink Opens Its First U.S. AI Factory in Fort Worth

    Foxlink advanced electronics factory in Fort Worth, Texas

    Foxlink has opened its first U.S. AI factory in Fort Worth, Texas, bringing advanced electronics production—and the potential for roughly 900 jobs—to AllianceTexas. The new operation shows what modern American manufacturing can look like: skilled people working alongside intelligent automation to build critical technology closer to U.S. customers.

    The Taiwanese technology manufacturer officially opened the facility on July 14, 2026. Production is expected to begin in August, turning a 147,780-square-foot building into a North American base for high-precision electronics assembly.

    A New Electronics Factory Starts Production in Texas

    Foxlink selected Alliance Gateway 17 at 4600 Alliance Gateway Freeway for its first North American manufacturing plant. At the opening, the company already had a little more than 50 employees on site, according to local reporting, with the workforce expected to expand as additional customers and production programs come online.

    At full capacity, the facility is projected to support approximately 900 jobs. That is a meaningful number for Fort Worth, but the larger story is the kind of work involved: technically demanding production that has too often been located far from the American companies and consumers who depend on it.

    What Foxlink Will Manufacture in Fort Worth

    The plant will handle printed circuit board assembly, surface-mount technology, final assembly, testing and packaging. These are not cosmetic finishing steps. They are core parts of turning sophisticated components into dependable products ready for customers.

    Foxlink also plans to use AI-driven robotics and intelligent automation throughout the operation. That combination can improve precision, consistency and speed while creating demand for technicians, engineers, equipment specialists, quality professionals and production workers who can keep a highly automated factory running.

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    Why AllianceTexas Made Sense

    AllianceTexas offers more than available industrial space. The development connects manufacturers to major highways, an intermodal rail facility and Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport. For an electronics producer receiving components and shipping finished goods, that network can reduce delays and make domestic production more competitive.

    Fort Worth also provides access to a large and growing labor market. Foxlink cited the region’s talent, logistics and business environment as reasons for choosing the site. Those practical advantages matter when a company is deciding whether its next factory belongs in the United States.

    Automation and 900 Potential Jobs Can Coexist

    The phrase “AI factory” may sound like a building without people. In reality, advanced automation changes the work more than it eliminates the need for workers. Robots can repeat precise motions, but people still install equipment, program systems, solve problems, inspect output, manage materials and improve the process.

    That is why workforce development must be part of the reshoring conversation. Communities that connect manufacturers with technical schools, community colleges and apprenticeship programs give local residents a better chance to qualify for the jobs these investments create.

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    An American Manufacturing Win—with an Important Distinction

    Foxlink is a Taiwanese-owned global company, so this is not a story about an American-owned manufacturer. It is still a genuine American manufacturing win because the production, investment and jobs are being placed in Texas. Clear language matters: “Made in USA” describes where work happens, not necessarily where a parent company is headquartered.

    Foreign-owned manufacturers employ millions of Americans and can strengthen domestic supply chains when they build here. The goal should be more production capacity on American soil, more opportunities for American workers and more resilience when international shipping or geopolitical events disrupt the flow of essential goods.

    What This Factory Could Mean Beyond Fort Worth

    A single factory will not rebuild the entire electronics supply chain. It can, however, become an anchor. Successful plants attract suppliers, service companies, logistics providers and specialized talent. They also give customers evidence that advanced electronics can be produced competitively in the United States.

    Foxlink’s decision could encourage other manufacturers to examine North Texas and other American regions with strong transportation and workforce networks. Every new operation adds knowledge and capacity that makes the next domestic investment easier.

    The Test Comes Next

    The opening ceremony is the beginning, not the finish line. The real measure will be how quickly production ramps, how many jobs materialize and whether the Fort Worth plant earns additional customer programs. Those results will determine the facility’s long-term impact.

    For now, the direction is encouraging. A global electronics manufacturer chose to put its first North American plant in Texas, begin production in 2026 and build a workforce around advanced manufacturing. That is the kind of concrete investment the Buy American movement should notice—and the kind consumers can reinforce by choosing products made here whenever possible.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • Every “Made in USA” Label Represents Someone’s Tuesday

    Every “Made in USA” Label Represents Someone’s Tuesday

    An American manufacturing worker on an ordinary Tuesday

    Turn over almost any product in your home.

    Somewhere on the back, in small print, you’ll find a country of origin.

    Most people glance at it for about two seconds.
    Or not at all.

    But every time you see the words “Made in USA,” you’re looking at something much bigger than a manufacturing label.

    You’re looking at somebody’s Tuesday.

    Before You Woke Up

    Long before you picked up that product, somebody else’s day had already begun.

    The lights came on at the factory before sunrise.
    The first shift clocked in.
    Someone unlocked the front door.
    Someone brewed the first pot of coffee.
    Someone started warming up the machines.
    Forklifts began moving pallets across the warehouse floor.
    Delivery trucks backed into loading docks.

    The work had already started hours before you ever saw the finished product.

    The People You’ll Never Meet

    That label isn’t just talking about a factory.
    It’s talking about people.

    The welder making sparks fly across a workbench.
    The machinist holding tolerances measured in thousandths of an inch.
    The woman answering customer service calls.
    The engineer improving next year’s design.
    The maintenance technician fixing a machine before production stops.
    The shipping clerk printing labels.
    The forklift driver loading tomorrow’s deliveries.
    The janitor sweeping the floor after everyone else has gone home.

    Most of them will never appear in an advertisement.
    You’ll never know their names.

    But their fingerprints are on the product you just bought.

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    Manufacturing Doesn’t Happen by Magic

    Walk into a store and it’s easy to think products simply appear on shelves.

    They don’t.

    Someone designed them.
    Someone sourced the materials.
    Someone cut the steel.
    Someone stitched the fabric.
    Someone molded the plastic.
    Someone inspected the finished product.
    Someone packed it into a box.
    Someone loaded it onto a truck.
    Someone drove that truck across the country.

    Every product is the end of a story that began weeks — or months — earlier.

    The label is simply the last page.

    Ordinary Days Build Extraordinary Things

    There’s nothing glamorous about most manufacturing work.

    It isn’t usually featured in television shows.
    There are no red carpets.
    No standing ovations.

    It’s people showing up.
    Again.
    And again.
    And again.

    Tuesday looks a lot like Monday.
    Wednesday looks a lot like Tuesday.

    Thousands of ordinary workdays eventually become products trusted for generations.

    The Estwing hammer hanging in your garage.
    The Liberty Tabletop flatware on your dinner table.
    The Darn Tough socks in your hiking boots.
    The Lodge skillet your grandchildren will someday cook with.

    Those products weren’t built by extraordinary moments.
    They were built by ordinary Tuesdays.

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    The Label Means Someone Got to Stay

    When you choose an American-made product, you’re doing more than supporting a company.

    You’re helping create another Tuesday.

    Another shift.
    Another paycheck.
    Another family dinner paid for by honest work.
    Another mortgage payment made on time.
    Another Little League registration.
    Another college tuition payment.
    Another retirement contribution.

    It’s easy to think of manufacturing as factories.
    It’s really people building lives.

    A Label Worth Looking At

    We’ve trained ourselves to notice price.
    Sometimes we notice the brand.
    Occasionally we notice the warranty.

    Maybe it’s time we spent another second looking at something else.

    That little label.

    Because it isn’t a slogan.
    It isn’t marketing.
    It isn’t politics.

    It’s evidence.

    Evidence that somewhere in America, while most of us were going about our own Tuesday, someone else was welding.
    Or sewing.
    Or machining.
    Or answering phones.
    Or loading trucks.
    Or sweeping the floor before locking the doors for the night.

    They probably never imagined you’d think about them.
    But you should.

    Because every “Made in USA” label represents somebody’s Tuesday.
    And that’s what you’re really bringing home.

    Related reading: Every Factory Has a Coffee Shop — the businesses that exist because a factory does.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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  • Every Factory Has a Coffee Shop

    Every Factory Has a Coffee Shop

    The coffee shop across from an American factory before dawn

    When people think about a factory, they usually picture the people inside it.

    The machinists.
    The welders.
    The forklift drivers.
    The engineers.
    The people assembling whatever comes off the production line.

    They’re right.
    But they’re also missing most of the story.

    Because every factory has a coffee shop.

    Not literally, perhaps. Sometimes it’s a diner. Sometimes it’s a food truck parked across the street. Sometimes it’s the family-owned café that has opened at 5:30 every morning for the last thirty years because the first shift starts at six.

    Those businesses don’t appear on the factory payroll.
    But they exist because the factory does.

    The First Shift Starts Long Before the Factory Does

    Drive past a manufacturing plant before sunrise.

    The parking lot is filling up.
    So is the coffee shop down the road.

    The waitress already knows half the customers by name.
    The owner knows who takes cream, who drinks it black, and who always grabs an extra breakfast sandwich for the road.

    That business wasn’t created by caffeine.
    It was created by manufacturing.

    One Job Creates Another

    Economists have a name for it.
    They call it the manufacturing multiplier.

    The idea is simple.

    A factory doesn’t just employ the people wearing hard hats inside the building. It creates work for countless others who may never set foot on the production floor.

    The trucking company hauling steel to the plant.
    The local machine shop repairing equipment.
    The electrician replacing a failed motor.
    The plumber fixing a broken water line.
    The accounting firm handling payroll.
    The uniform company washing work clothes.
    The janitorial crew cleaning the offices.
    The landscaper mowing the grounds.
    The restaurant serving lunch.
    The gas station selling fuel.
    The hardware store supplying everything from light bulbs to safety glasses.

    One manufacturing job supports many more jobs beyond the factory gates.

    That’s why manufacturing has always mattered more than its payroll suggests.

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    The Day the Parking Lot Empties

    When a factory closes, the building usually stays standing.
    At first.

    The lights go out.
    The parking lot empties.
    The sign comes down.

    From a distance, it looks like one business disappeared.
    But that’s not what happened.

    The waitress notices fewer breakfast customers.
    The trucking company loses a contract.
    The electrician gets fewer service calls.
    The restaurant cuts back its hours.
    The landlord struggles to find new tenants.
    The school district collects less in property taxes.
    Little League loses a sponsor.

    The town doesn’t collapse all at once.

    It simply becomes a little quieter.
    Then a little emptier.
    Then someone wonders why the young people keep leaving.

    A Factory Is an Anchor

    Manufacturing plants don’t just make products.
    They anchor communities.

    A factory gives people a reason to buy a home instead of renting.
    To coach Little League.
    To volunteer at the fire department.
    To serve on the school board.
    To open a business.
    To believe they’ll still be there ten years from now.

    That’s how communities are built.
    Not overnight.
    Over generations.

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    We Celebrate Ribbon Cuttings. We Forget Everything That Follows.

    When a new factory opens, the headlines usually focus on one number.

    Five hundred jobs.
    One thousand jobs.
    Two thousand jobs.

    Those numbers matter.
    But they’re only the beginning.

    Nobody writes the headline six months later:
    Local diner hires three more servers.

    Or:
    Small accounting firm expands because of new manufacturing clients.

    Or:
    Coffee shop opens a second location near the industrial park.

    Those stories don’t make national news.
    But together, they’re what economic growth actually looks like.

    Buying More Than a Product

    Every time you choose an American-made product, you’re doing more than buying what’s in the box.

    You’re supporting the truck driver who delivered the raw materials.
    The machine operator who shaped them.
    The supplier who manufactured the components.
    The electrician who keeps the production line running.
    The coffee shop owner who unlocks the front door before dawn because the first shift will be stopping in soon.

    Most of those people will never know your name.
    You’ll probably never know theirs.

    But your purchase connects you anyway.

    The Coffee Shop Matters Too

    It’s easy to look at a factory and see a building.
    It’s harder to see the web of businesses and families that depend on it.

    Yet that’s where manufacturing leaves its deepest mark.

    Not only in the products it makes.
    But in the communities it sustains.

    People often ask why manufacturing matters.

    The answer isn’t only found inside the factory.
    Sometimes it’s sitting across the street, pouring coffee at 5:30 in the morning.

    Because every factory has a coffee shop.
    And every community is stronger when both are busy.

    Related reading: Cheap Goods, Expensive Country — what the price tag never shows you.

    Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

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