Re: manufacturing in poorer countries
My father (industrial engineer) contracted with dozens of companies through most of the second half of the 20th century, it has not been a stagnant field. When I was in high school (late 1990s) I toured a relatively new auto plant, even then it was all robots and low-touch. No one is going to pay a human to do something a machine can do at the same cost, the companies (like Apple, frankly) who skipped industrial automation because of quarterly financials were always going to be at a competitive disadvantage eventually.
Presumably you and I are in roughly the same demographic as far as ambition, entrepreneurship, education, and I assume we are both compensated commensurately. Many people aren't interested in doing more than just enough to eat, sleep, and be merry; there's beauty in that, and it doesn't make them idiots or whatever you were channeling. I have a lot more respect for an honest laborer, technician, or mechanic than I do a "serial entrepreneur" or most CEOs.
Do not take this as an argument for tariffs; artificially skewing one aspect of a market does not usually end well for the others. I'm just reacting to the unfortunately pervasive ideas that manufacturing hasn't changed since the 1900s and that low-wage, low-ambition workers are idiots.