Make the "Rust Belt" Great Again.
During the World War II era, the economy was fueled by a robust manufacturing sector and a high demand for steel. But by the 1970s, increased globalization and competition from overseas factories caused the dissolution of this industrial center. Factories and steel mills closed, and industrial jobs disappeared by the thousands, within a few years. By the 1980s, the Rust Belt became what the Dust Bowl had been to an earlier generation.
Eventually, many cities did find new industries to replace the shuttered steel mills and manufacturing plants, but many of these new industries, such as medical research and plastics, only hire a fraction of the number of workers as the former plants once did.
Overcapacities in the steel industry have become the new normal when China, the world's largest producer of steel, ramped up its production and flooded the markets, including the United States, with cheap steel. U.S. steel imports peaked in 2015, when the trade deficit reached 745.66 billion U.S. dollars.
1973 U.S. steel production: 229m metric tons
2017 U.S. steel production: 82m metric tons