New Abrams tanks overhauled at the Pentagon-owned factory in Lima, Ohio, are loaded on rail cars for shipment. (David S. Cloud/Los Angeles Times)
Loren Thompson, Forbes: How President Trump Saved The Last Tank Plant In America
If you want to believe America is still the "arsenal of democracy" that Franklin Roosevelt described in 1940, you might want to avoid looking too closely at the U.S. manufacturing sector. China has become the world's premier industrial power, greatly out-producing the United States in everything from steel to smartphones. Germany's machine-tool industry outshines our own. No U.S. shipyard has built a commercial ship destined for international commerce in decades.
The economic consequences of America's manufacturing decline have been widely reported. What gets less attention is how industrial decay might impact national defense. Nobody really knows how a future great-power conflict might unfold, but Washington could be forced to use nuclear weapons to avert defeat if it can't mobilize quickly for conventional combat. President Trump is the first chief executive since the Cold War ended who seems to grasp what a waning industrial base might one day mean for our security.
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WNU editor: It is hard to believe that if it was not for President Trump and his administration, the U.S. was about to close its one factory that produces tanks.