Speaking Monday at Liberty University in Virginia, Trump said, "We're going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries." He threatened to impose a 35 percent tax on businesses producing goods overseas.
This was huge. The degree of cluelessness, that is. "Damn computers and things"? From the leading candidate of the party that used to be the refuge of business?
It's typical Trump bluster, of course, riling up his fan base and grabbing headlines. He knows he can't single-handedly force Apple or any other company to build its "things" in the United States. And no Congress, Democratic or Republican, would agree to levy that 35 percent tax.
But demonizing Apple by name, the most valuable company in the nation with a market cap of more than $500 billion, says a lot about the man and his values.
We'd like to see more manufacturing in this country, too. But the reasons it has moved largely overseas are complex, and trying to bully executives to return it will just influence them to ship out, too. In fact Apple does manufacture some products in the United States. But the real value Apple and other tech giants provide is in the high-paying jobs to design, develop and manage their vast array of products.
Silicon Valley added 58,000 jobs in 2014, a 4.1 percent jump from the previous year, with a median income of $118,700. Those numbers are the envy of the world. They're the reason metropolitan areas in every industrialized nation try to mimic the formula: "Localcity: The Silicon Valley of (name your state or country)."
Lower wages is one reason for overseas manufacturing, although labor costs rise as emerging nations grow their economies. Another is the market: Asia's appetite for tech products seems to be infinite.
But a big reason also is the shortage of engineers and skilled workers in this country to design, manage and operate ever-changing manufacturing operations. These are not Henry Ford's factories.
That's something presidential candidates should be talking about: How can we improve science, technology, engineering and math education and attract a broader cross section of Americans to the tech field? If we can't, and other countries surpass us in creativity as well as educational achievement, we will see the high-end Silicon Valley jobs heading overseas, too.
If Trump wants to help, he can support and pledge to expand President Obama's new, $100 million TechHire Initiative to help Americans fill the thousands of tech jobs that today go begging for lack of qualified applicants.
It won't grab big headlines. But it might help Silicon Valley CEOs see Trump as a potential president instead of a joke.
©2016 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
