Are you convinced that the U.S. “doesn’t make anything anymore”? Do you believe that America is “deindustrializing?” Have you backed candidates who pledge to aggressively wield tariffs, quotas, and subsidies to “maintain our manufacturing base”?
This summer, take a roadtrip. That should change your mind.
Whether it’s Historic Route 66 or coast to coast, the Nuclear Highway or the Great River Road, the first thing you’re likely to notice is a whole lot of tractor-trailers. Don’t tell Peter Navarro, but they weren’t made in China. Kenworth and Peterbilt are subsidiaries of PACCAR, founded as the Pacific Car and Foundry Company in 1905. Today, it’s “a global technology leader in the design, manufacture and customer support of premium light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks.” The corporation’s “Truck, Parts and Other Net Sales and Revenues” rose from $21.8 billion in 2021 to $27.3 billion in 2022. Kenworth’s factory in Chillicothe, Ohio “opened in 1974” and as of 2017, employed “more than 1,750 people.”
PACCAR faces fierce competition from Freightliner Trucks, founded in 1942 but now a division of Daimler Truck. Its operation in Cleveland, North Carolina has produced 800,000 units since 1989. Another rival is Volvo Trucks, “one of the leading heavy truck and engine manufacturers,” which owns a “1.6-million-square-foot … assembly plant” in Dublin, Virginia — “the largest Volvo truck manufacturing facility in the world.” No one knows how the Tesla Semi will fare. But if it’s a hit, that means a lot more jobs at Gigafactory 1 in Storey County, Nevada.
Tankers, flatbeds, lowboys, tippers, auto transports, dry vans — domestic suppliers of big-riggers’ trailers offer all kinds of models. The companies are numerous, and scattered all over the country: Cottrell Trailers (Georgia), Great Dane (Illinois), Trail King Industries (South Dakota), East Manufacturing (Ohio), Clement Industries (Louisiana), and Wabash National Corporation (Indiana) are just a few of the choices. (A personal favorite: Cottrell’s “all-new, eight-vehicle CX-5308LS.” The “strap high-mount trailer maximizes load potential in a 53-foot, high fifth-wheel design but is the lightest of its kind in the industry — weighing as little as 21,500 pounds.”)
When you stop for fuel and/or food, check out a historical marker, or explore a local curiosity, look up. As difficult as it may be to believe, given all its woes, Boeing delivered 480 jets last year. In the “lucrative widebody airplane category,” the company was “essentially even in production” with Airbus, and “Boeing won more orders.” Brazil-based Embraer, the “third-largest producer of civil aircraft” on the planet, opened a Florida facility in 2011. It recently announced the hiring of “more than 150” workers there, including “Assembly Technicians, A&P Technicians, Aircraft Painters, Quality Inspectors and Manufacturing Engineers.” And let’s not forget crop dusters. Air Tractor (Texas) and Thrush Aircraft (Georgia) help farmers kill an unfathomable number of pests.
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