President Trump contends our manufacturing jobs have been and continue to be lost from bad trade deals and unfair competition from foreign countries. The way the president wants to attack this problem is through ripping up what he considers bad trade deals and heavily taxing products being shipped here from foreign countries, primarily China and Mexico.

The fact is that 85 percent of manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 to 2010 were because of automation. Automation continues to replace many jobs, not bad trade deals or unfair competition. Overall manufacturing production is twice what it was in the 1980s with one-third of the workers. An Oxford University study predicts millions of more jobs held by humans will be automated over the next 20 years. New technology and automation cannot be banned by a presidential order or new legislation.

What the president and new legislation can do is to provide funding for retraining to help workers in adapting to these new technologies. As smarter machines continue to replace jobs the president needs to get with the program and pass policies that work rather than those that will cause more political and social upheaval.

Marshall Chiaraluce

Mystic