THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 10

WHY EVERY GREAT NATION NEEDS STRONG DOMESTIC INDUSTRY

To the People of the United States,

A nation that does not command its own industry is a nation standing on borrowed time, a power that may wear the robes of strength but is, in reality, naked before the forces of dependency and decline. A people who rely upon the factories, the labor, and the resources of foreign lands for their daily survival are not free. A government that presides over economic dependence, that allows its industries to wither and its workforce to become expendable, is not a government at all—it is an administrator of decline, a steward of subjugation. The strength of a nation is not measured by its financial markets, nor by the wealth of its oligarchs, but by the resilience of its industries, by its ability to produce, build, and sustain itself without dependence on foreign powers. Without a strong domestic industry, a nation is a servant in the global order, begging for resources, pleading for manufactured goods, hoping that its economic survival is not deemed inconvenient by the very forces to which it has surrendered its productive might. No great nation has ever thrived in servitude. No empire has ever risen on the back of another's industry. No republic has ever secured the future of its people by outsourcing its destiny to foreign profiteers.

We were once a nation of builders. We forged the railroads that connected a continent, built not just by visionaries and industrialists, but by the relentless labor of Chinese immigrants, Irish workers, and freedmen who laid the tracks with sweat and steel, expanding the reach of American industry at great personal cost, we forged steel that shaped the skyline of our cities, we assembled the engines of war that secured victory against tyranny. The American worker was the envy of the world, the American factory the beating heart of global industry. We produced, we exported, we led. But that was before the great betrayal, before the doctrine of profit-above-patriotism dictated that our industries be dismantled and shipped overseas, before the architects of greed and short-sightedness declared that it was more efficient—more profitable—to let other nations produce while we consumed. They sold the promise of globalization, a vision where American workers would thrive in a service economy while cheap foreign labor handled the burdens of manufacturing. They lied. What they built was not prosperity, but dependency. What they engineered was not progress, but decline.

They did not replace industry with opportunity; they replaced it with debt, with stagnation, with a hollowed-out economy that serves only those at the very top while the middle class is left to wither.

We were told that free trade would bring mutual prosperity, that the dismantling of tariffs, the erosion of national manufacturing, the offshoring of jobs would lift all boats. But whose boats were lifted? The American worker was not lifted. The towns that once thrived with industry, that once echoed with the sound of machinery and labor, have been reduced to husks, their streets lined with the ghosts of shuttered factories, their people left to survive on scraps, on government assistance, on the false promise that one day the jobs might return. The only boats lifted were those of multinational corporations, of banking elites, of foreign nations that now hold the keys to our economic survival. We have become a nation that imports what it once made, that borrows what it once earned, that consumes without producing. A great nation does not surrender its economic autonomy to the lowest bidder. A great nation does not measure its strength by stock market gains while its industrial core rots from within.

Our dependence on foreign industry is not simply an economic failure; it is a national security crisis. What happens when a nation that cannot manufacture its own goods finds itself in conflict with the very powers that supply its essential materials? What happens when an economy reliant on global supply chains is severed from those chains by war, by embargo, by economic blackmail? The answer is not hypothetical—it is historical. Nations that lose control of their production lose control of their fate. A country that cannot produce its own steel cannot build its own ships, cannot fortify its own defenses, cannot arm its own soldiers without seeking permission from foreign suppliers. A country that outsources its technology, its energy, its infrastructure to other nations places its very sovereignty in their hands. We have already seen the dangers: semiconductor shortages crippling our industries, medical supply dependencies leaving us vulnerable in times of crisis, foreign powers holding the levers of our technological advancement. These are not abstract concerns. These are the clear and present dangers of economic servitude.

The answer is not more free trade agreements that accelerate the destruction of domestic industry. It’s not more corporate tax loopholes that incentivize offshoring. It’s not blind faith in the same economic elite who orchestrated this disaster. The answer is a full-scale industrial revival. The answer is national economic self-reliance. The answer is an unapologetic commitment to rebuilding the factories, the foundries, the assembly lines that once defined American strength.

We must not ask whether we can afford to rebuild our industrial base; we must ask whether we can afford not to. A nation that produces nothing, that outsources its essential industries, that relies on foreign supply chains for its economic survival is not a nation at all—it is a colony, an appendage to stronger powers, a market to be exploited rather than a power to be reckoned with. The cost of industrial revival is not a burden but an investment, one that secures the economic independence of future generations, one that ensures that we are not left at the mercy of foreign powers who see our dependence as leverage, as a tool to dictate our policies, our priorities, our very future. A country that abandons its manufacturing does not merely lose jobs; it loses the ability to dictate its own course, to stand firm in the face of global economic storms, to weather crises without pleading for lifelines from its competitors.

The cost of inaction is not theoretical—it is real, and it is devastating. It is found in the ghost towns where factories once stood, where steel once flowed, where communities thrived on the wages of workers who built tangible wealth rather than shuffled numbers in a speculative casino. It is found in the empty main streets of former manufacturing hubs, now hollowed out, replaced with low-wage service jobs that offer no security, no benefits, no future. It is found in the desperation of a workforce that has been told that their labor is obsolete, that their livelihoods are expendable, that they must accept servitude in a globalized market where the lowest bidder dictates the worth of their skills. It is found in the humiliating reality that the United States, once the industrial powerhouse of the world, now begs for microchips from Taiwan, for steel from China, for energy infrastructure built by hands that do not hold allegiance to this republic.

We must recognize that the cost of action pales in comparison to the cost of continued decline. What is the price of resurgence compared to the cost of collapse? What is the investment in industry compared to the price of dependence? The trillions lost in trade deficits, the billions siphoned out of the American economy each year to pay for goods we once made ourselves, the entire generations raised without the dignity of meaningful, well-paying industrial jobs—this is the true cost of our complacency. The belief that revitalizing American industry is too expensive is a lie told by those who profit from our submission, by those who see no issue in an economy where financial speculation takes precedence over production, where shareholders demand higher returns at the expense of national stability.

We must recognize that tariffs are not barriers but tools of protection. For too long, we have been conditioned to believe that any restriction on trade, any policy that prioritizes domestic production, is an affront to the so-called free market. But what is free about an economic system where American workers are forced to compete with foreign labor under conditions that would be illegal on our own soil? What is fair about trade agreements that empower multinational corporations to extract wealth from our nation while giving nothing in return? Tariffs are not instruments of isolation; they are the shields that guard national industry, the mechanisms by which a country ensures that its workforce is not sacrificed on the altar of global profit margins. Every great industrial power in history has used them to protect its own, and every nation that abandoned them has found itself at the mercy of those who did not.

Domestic investment is not an expense but a necessity. The notion that government support for industry is an undue interference in the economy is another lie propagated by those who benefit from our reliance on foreign production. Every major industrial power—whether in its infancy or its peak—has understood that state investment is critical to economic strength. The railroads that linked this nation from coast to coast were not built solely by private capital; they were supported by public grants, by land policies that incentivized national infrastructure. The steel industry that made America the arsenal of democracy during World War II did not rise in a vacuum; it was bolstered by wartime contracts, by policies that ensured that industry and national interest were aligned. The semiconductor industry, which now defines technological superiority, was seeded by public research, by investments that recognized that certain industries are too important to be left to the whims of market fluctuations. The idea that industry should fend for itself in the name of free-market purity is a philosophy designed to weaken nations, to ensure that power is not consolidated within the hands of the people but instead remains in the hands of those who have no loyalty to any nation, who see borders only as obstacles to be overcome in their pursuit of profit.

Industry is not merely an economic sector but the foundation of national power. Without it, a nation is a tenant in the house of global affairs, always seeking permission, always vulnerable to the whims of those who produce what it cannot. Without industry, there is no military strength, no economic independence, no resilience in the face of crisis. Industry is the bedrock upon which national sovereignty is built. A nation that manufactures its own goods, that mines its own resources, that controls its own production, is a nation that cannot be coerced, cannot be dictated to, cannot be brought to its knees by economic warfare. It is a nation that can stand tall in the face of uncertainty, that can weather disruptions, that can dictate its own terms rather than accepting those imposed upon it.

The choice before us is not a matter of economic theory or political ideology—it is a matter of survival. Either we rebuild what was lost, or we accept our place as a vassal state in the new global order. Either we take the necessary steps to secure our future, or we resign ourselves to being dependent, vulnerable, beholden to those who have outproduced us. This is not about nostalgia; this is about necessity. This is not about looking backward; this is about ensuring that we have a future worth looking forward to. The call to rebuild American industry is not a plea—it is a mandate, an imperative, a demand that this nation return to its rightful place as a power that does not ask for permission, but instead defines its own destiny through the strength of its own hands, its own factories, its own ingenuity. The time for hesitation has passed. The time for action is now. We do not ask if we can afford it; we declare that we cannot afford anything less.

There will be those who resist, those who scoff at the notion that a modern economy must produce as well as consume. They will call it protectionism, as though protecting one’s own economy is a sin. They will call it outdated, as though sovereignty is a relic of the past. They will call it impractical, as though there is anything practical about a nation that relies on its rivals for survival. But their protests ring hollow, for the truth is self-evident: no country that abandons its industry remains strong. No people who allow their manufacturing to decay remain prosperous. No nation that surrenders its production can ever call itself independent.

A new industrial age must rise from the wreckage of this failed economic experiment. We will not wait for permission. We will not ask for guidance from the same financial class that dismantled our industries, hollowed out our economy, and sold our birthright to the highest bidder. The American worker must once again take their rightful place as the engine of national prosperity, not as an afterthought in a global marketplace that treats labor as an inconvenience, but as the foundation upon which a self-sufficient and powerful nation stands. The steel mills must roar, not as relics of the past, but as cathedrals of national strength, forging the backbone of a country that will never again kneel before foreign suppliers. The factories must hum with the energy of a people who refuse to be replaced, outsourced, and discarded like yesterday’s scrap metal. The supply chains must be torn away from foreign ports, ripped from the hands of those who hold them as leverage against our national security, and rerouted back through American soil, where they belong.

This is not nostalgia. It is survival. This is not economic regression. It is the only path forward for a nation that refuses to be a client state of global financiers. There is no dignity in a country that calls itself a superpower while relying on its competitors for the very materials it needs to build, to produce, to defend itself. There is no honor in a government that claims to represent its people while allowing the foundation of its economic independence to rot under the weight of corporate greed and globalist deception. There is no power in a nation that must plead with foreign factories to meet its needs, that must suffer economic blackmail when supply lines are cut, that must beg for semiconductors, for energy, for raw materials that it once extracted, refined, and manufactured with its own hands. A country that does not produce for itself is not sovereign. A nation that does not build for itself is not strong. And a people who do not fight for their own economic future will be left as nothing more than consumers, dependent on forces beyond their control, slaves to an economy designed for their exploitation.

We must build, we must produce, we must reclaim what was lost. This is not a request. This is an ultimatum. Either we take back our industries, or we submit. Either we return to the principles that built this nation into an industrial juggernaut, or we resign ourselves to mediocrity, to dependency, to a slow national death at the hands of foreign control and domestic negligence. We have waited long enough. We have listened to the so-called experts who told us that outsourcing was the future, that free trade would enrich us all, that abandoning our factories was the mark of an evolved economy. They were liars. They were thieves. And they were wrong. Now we take back what is ours. The steel, the iron, the energy, the infrastructure, the technology—all of it must be reclaimed, reforged, and placed under the command of those who built this country: the American worker.

A strong domestic industry is not an option. It is not a preference. It is the very lifeblood of a sovereign nation. Without it, we are weak. Without it, we are exposed. Without it, we are nothing more than a shell of what we once were, existing at the whim of foreign producers who see our dependence as their power. The time for words has ended. The time for rebuilding begins now. Let us reclaim our place among the great nations of history—not as consumers, not as dependents, not as a service economy designed to prop up the wealth of a corporate elite—but as the builders and producers of our own destiny. Let those who profited from our decline hear us now: your time is over. The American worker is rising. The American industry is returning. And nothing—no foreign competitor, no corporate boardroom, no coward in Washington—will stand in our way.