When I've read the first time Trump was against globalization and willing to bring back jobs in the USA, I was thinking he was a serpent oil seller. Each and every leader would like to propose that, also here in Europe: the reason they aren't is that they don't have a strategy to do it. Then I've seen how he "saved" 1000 workplaces during the "Thank you" tour, and I understood he has a plan.
Basically how he convinced the company to do not fire people is easy to understand: since the company itself is a supplier of the US Army, he just threaten them to quit the business. The company of course took in consideration pro and cons, and of course it was worth the price to keep those 1000 workplaces.
Now, until this is a single episode, seems just propaganda. But... now let's think a bit. How big is the government's expenditure? And how high is the number of companies which are into the supply chain?
Well, the USA hasn't a huge welfare like the european countries, but this is widely compensated by a huge military expenditure. If we consider how massive this expenditure is, he could actually succeed.
Of course, since Apple is not involved in such an expenditure, they will probably not move production out of China, but... Trump doesn't needs that, at least at the beginning.
How big is the supply chain of public expenditure in the USA? More or less, 500.000 companies are involved. Some big, some small , some are suppliers of suppliers. Now, if Trump just enforces the idea that only companies which are "buying american" and "buying from companies which are the same", let's say 3 levels-wide, (suppliers of suppliers of suppliers) , the number is at least half a million companies.
If this enforcement of "buy american" would take an average of 10 workplaces per company, in total he could bring back 5.000.000 workplaces. And this is not that hard: all of it comes from public expenditure, just modulating it. Competition on prices would NOT be a problem because there are no foreign competitors. Neither prices are a problem, since public expenditure always has inflated prices with high overcharge.
Once the first year he can announce that 500.000 companies are certified for only having american employees and buying from companies with the same certification, (and bring back 5.000.000 workplaces) now the problem is in the yard of the other companies: who wants to be the "unpatriotic" company?
Imagine he creates a certificate, let's call "100% American Company", when a company is having 100% of workforce in the USA, and only buying from companies which have the same certificate. And he requires this certificate in order to be a government supplier. Is not that hard. And now he pushes all his voters to only buy from companies which have this certificate.
After this step, even Apple could feel a strong push to show this "100% American Company" certificate , too. It's an image problem. A strong image problem. So that, it could work.
Yes, the man has a strategy.
Could it work? Well, to change the rules in the government's supply is just a single act. And hardly it would fins any opposition from any american lobby. We can say, initially it could work. For at least 3-4 years, this could work.
What's next, then?
Of course, there are pro and cons. It will happen that all the other countries will start to do the same. Once the strategy is clear, almost all the european governments will do the same. The reason is easy: given of a massive welfare, their expenditure is even bigger. If a country like Germany enforces a rule like that, their import would drop near to zero. And the same for France and Italy: they have such a huge public expenditure that a rule like that would simply wipe out any company which outsourced: those countries are having a public expenditure which is 45% of GDP. With such a massive expenditure, is hard to find a single company which is not in a business with the government, or in a business with a supplier of the government.
Enforce a rule like that for the public expenditure would just result in the complete stop of import, with the only exception of commodities which are not available locally.
Now, since the USA are , more or less, one of the bigger exporters of IT and services, this would hardly impact their IT sector. If a government only buys from 100% local companies, and Microsoft is an american company, 50% of all the country expenditure in IT would go to the local software producers. I can't imagine them to produce an OS like windows (even if there are some interesting experiments) , probably this would lead to a massive migration to opensource software everywhere.
Then, in the short term Trump could succeed, because he seems to use the public expenditure as a leverage to trigger companies to only buy american from companies which are only buying american. After of this phase, which could probably succeed (let's say 2-3 years for the market to restructure itself) then all the other countries and markets will do the same. (India and Russia and Japan are doing this at some extent, UK will follow shortly, so let's say the interesting players are European Union, Arab countries, Brasil and Mercosur countries)
When the other markets will do the same, the global commerce would probably drop to the absolute low in the last 3 centuries. (now we are at the low since 40 years, more or less) .
So the idea of "leaving the WTO" will be easy: WTO itself will be almost useless.
Here it comes the issue: when there is little commerce, sea power is no power. And sky power too: if there is a little need to exchange, there is a little need to move anything. Aircraft industry and naval industry would probably drop at the lowest.
How the USA would be able to survive in a planet where sea power and sky power are not a thing, is fully unclear. Sure USA can live with it, but the influence is widely reduced: it means to downsize to a local power: when there is no commerce, every power is a local power. When you cannot threaten to use your navy to block commerce to any country, what your navy is there for? When you cannot threaten a country to block their skies, what your air-force is there for? Maybe for defense, but the meaning of "sea power" would not be as stronger as now.
Yes, the idea to use public expenditure as a leverage to enforce companies to in-source production could work. And this idea could have lot of supporters everywhere.
The problem is, a planet like that is widely different than the one we have now. And the USA could be very, very, very downsized compared to our days. Seems a short term victory which has pro and cons, and most of the planet is waiting for the "cons" to show.