Who Really Steals American Jobs? Automation More Challenging Than Mexico or China

Donald Trump has been lambasting Mexico and China and depicting global trade as the greatest threat to the American job market. He even signed an order to build a Mexican border wall and considers a 20% tax on imports from Mexico a way to fund it.

With his harsh rhetoric against emerging markets, Trump is turning a blind eye to another grievous trend affecting the workforce. In fact, trade with China, Mexico and other countries takes away far fewer jobs than automation. According to a study by Ball State University, 87% of the US manufacturing job losses that occurred between 2000 and 2010 stemmed from productivity increase related to industrial use of information technology. At the same time, only 13% were due to trade.

This article from The Guardian takes a comprehensive look at how robots affect the American workforce. The claim is that robotics can actually aid Trump fulfill his election pledge of bringing manufacturing back to the US. However, automation will also impede fulfilling his other election promise, namely creating new jobs for lower-skilled workers. The reason is very straightforward - low-skilled jobs will have to be automated to cut costs. The trend might affect various positions, ranging from McDonald’s cashiers being replaced by self-serve kiosks to the possibility of cow-milking or bricklaying robots being employed in the future.

Although it is impossible to predict exactly how the trend will develop under Trump’s presidency, The Guardian paints a grim picture: "the interests of those Americans at greatest risk of professional obsolescence will continue to be sacrificed in favor of serving, protecting and benefiting wealthy, white conservatives – a trend we are likely to see across virtually every aspect of life in Trump’s America and yet it's another betrayal of the predominantly working-class voters who believed Trump’s empty promises on the campaign trail."