‘Most Americans aren’t willing to work in factories’: Investor questions Trump’s manufacturing gamble

America wants the factories back but the factory workers may have moved on. As Donald Trump pushes his sweeping new tariff plan to jumpstart U.S. manufacturing, a more uncomfortable truth is surfacing online: the modern American worker might not be coming along for the ride.

What began as a policy announcement has triggered a cultural reckoning. “The thing Trump is missing on tariffs,” wrote one investor on X, “is that most Americans aren’t willing to work in factories. This new generation just wants to do a YouTube channel and scam someone with a crypto coin.”

Angie G’s post struck a nerve, igniting debate on whether the U.S. still has the appetite or the aptitude for a manufacturing revival.

One user challenged her view: “Not necessarily, I think that's about 15-20% of the young cadre of men. The other 80-85% I think would take on a (modern) factory job with a good wage. The young women on the other hand IMO are harder to classify.”

Angie replied, “I dunno. Kind of giving the same vibes we [got] when Obama told manufacturing men to learn to code. Now they can code and Trump is telling them to learn to manufacture lol.”

Another user, Adrian Morris, weighed in with a harsher reality check: “The problem is they didn't learn to code though. For 20 years now I've seen that 90% of the workforce can barely handle Excel, let alone SQL, Python, etc. Those skillsets became centralized in whole new verticals while everyone else trotted along.”

He warned that Trump’s vision of a reborn industrial America depends on a workforce that doesn’t yet exist. “The kind of manufacturing Trump is talking about will need highly skilled workers that can work in tandem with robotic manufacturing (think a Tesla plant) and now A.I. so IMO the problem isn't just training, and skills. It's the aptitude of the general workforce, it's just not there at scale.”

Trump’s tariff blueprint, revealed on April 2 and branded "Liberation Day," imposes a flat 10% tax on all imports, with additional levies of up to 50% targeting 60 countries. Major hits include China (54% total), Vietnam (46%), and Cambodia (49%).

Global reactions have been swift and sharp. China will retaliate with its own 34% tariffs and rare-earth restrictions. The EU is preparing countermeasures. Canada, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea have condemned the plan, while Australia and Mexico seek diplomatic detours.