Our government could do a lot more to level the playing field for manufacturing. While the Reshoring Initiative does not support individual candidates, we do recommend policies that will bring manufacturing back from offshore, and we try to document candidate positions on these issues.

It is too little and too late to keep writing “manufacturing matters.” Everything else in the economy is secondary to manufacturing, mining and farming. Only these activities build wealth.

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration has named 12 regions of the U,S. that will receive special attention under a new federal program designed to help make them more attractive to manufacturing companies.

PERRYVILLE, MO—Could the answer to America’s manufacturing problem be somewhere in this modest Midwestern town, population 8,225?

WASHINGTON—Manufacturing accounts for 28.7 percent of Oregon’s gross state product, the highest percentage in the country, according to the latest statistics from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Looking back on the campaign, it was refreshing to hear candidates from both parties tout the importance of U.S. manufacturing.

HARRISBURG, PA—State-level manufacturing job growth has varied across the 16 presidential administrations since 1948, with significant gains in most states across the seven Democratic terms and significant losses under the nine Republican ones, according to a new analysis of official government data.

WASHINGTON—Some 84 percent of Americans “strongly agree” or “agree” that the United States needs a more strategic approach to developing its manufacturing base, but only about 35 percent believe that federal and state governments are helping create a competitive advantage for the United States versus other countries.