We Need a McCain Moment to Save U.S. Manufacturing

As the race for the White House intensifies, one issue both major candidates for president agree on is that the American manufacturing industry is in crisis. You hear it in the campaign ads and in the events the candidates hold at factories or union halls.

Here in Pennsylvania, where factory floors once hummed with the rhythm of industry, this crisis echoes loudly. But despite all the rhetoric, the real solutions we desperately need are missing. The truth is, it’s not tariffs or tax cuts that will revive this critical sector — it’s innovation.

American history is steeped in stories of innovation leading us out of crisis. Radar and jeeps helped us win World War II. The transistor put us ahead in the space race. And more recently, mRNA technology played a key role in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Time and time again, innovation has been the cornerstone of America’s resilience. Yet, today, as our manufacturing sector continues to shrink, we’re failing to apply that same devotion to innovation.

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The numbers are stark: Over the past 50 years, American manufacturing has declined by 34%. Since 1979, we’ve lost nearly 7 million manufacturing jobs. Our infrastructure — once the backbone of the U.S. economy — is aging and crumbling, while our global competitors surge ahead. China’s production now eclipses the next nine largest nations combined. They produce 54% of the world’s steel, while we manage just 4%. China builds 47% of the world’s ships; the U.S. produces less than 1%.

The manufacturing industry is what built the American middle class and made us an economic superpower. Every manufacturing job creates as many as 12 additional jobs in other sectors. It’s about more than just reviving an industry — it’s about restoring the middle class, reinvigorating communities and protecting our national security.

If this sounds dire, it is. But history gives us a blueprint for how we can turn the tide.

A little over a decade ago, our national defense industry faced a similar crisis. China and Russia were rapidly developing defense technologies, and America risked falling behind. In 2015, defense leaders like then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and the late Senator John McCain visited Silicon Valley and implored start ups, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to surge on national defense. McCain wrote that, “America’s military technological advantage is eroding fast” and called on Silicon Valley to step up.

And step up it did. Between 2019 and 2022, venture capital investment in defense startups doubled to $33 billion. The Department of Defense opened offices in tech hubs like Austin, Boston and Silicon Valley to foster collaboration with startups. This new wave of defense innovation birthed companies like Palantir and Anduril, while hackathons and incubators fueled the creation of even more groundbreaking technologies. Building technology to defend America’s national security became cool. Almost overnight, tech centers that had previously looked down at building in the defense space became breeding grounds for innovation.

We need that same sense of urgency, and spirit of innovation, to revitalize American manufacturing. Imagine hackathons designed to make steel production safer and more efficient. Picture millions in venture capital investments focused on rebuilding the shipyards that once made the U.S. a naval powerhouse and revitalizing our domestic mining operations by deploying new technologies to extract essential materials and resources while boosting our economic and national security. Imagine government offices opening in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland — not just to regulate, but to actively collaborate with entrepreneurs to implement new technologies on factory floors.

The technology already exists to make this vision a reality. Advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and automation can completely transform our factories, making them more competitive globally while creating good jobs right here at home.

It’s time for someone to bring government, industry, venture capital and entrepreneurs together on how we can innovate our way out of this problem. In 2015, McCain wrote about the prevailing wisdom that entrepreneurs were not interested in working with the U.S. Defense Department, “I believe the brightest minds will always be driven to solve the world’s toughest problems.” That problem today is how we rebuild making in America.

We just need that McCain moment once again.