The status quo was a broken system.
It was a bad decision to move manufacturing out of the US to begin with. Only looking at cost or profit, it might make sense, but if you look at the economy as a whole, the people of the US need jobs so they can earn the money to buy the products. If you move the jobs to another country, it breaks the economy. It might help that country, but it doesn't help this one. Cheap might be nice for the short term, but over the last fifty to sixty years, the country has been on a steady downward spiral. We have to bring manufacturing back to the US or the country will be bankrupt. It already is, but the central bankS are printing money fast enough to make everyone think the economy isn't broken but the national debt can't keep going up forever.
There's certainly lots of truth to all of that. It's complicated, though, and involves intractable factors such as economic disparity, regulation, environmental issues, etc.
As an example, during the '80's and '90's, many call centers were offshored to locations such as India, where labor was cheap, and the early adopters found a reasonably large supply of fluent English-speakers willing to work at wages that were great for them at the time. This was not a particularly sustainable model over time, as the demand spike caused the solicitation of less-fluent English-speakers, and sparked the growth of a new, more affluent "middle-class" who
simultaneously demanded higher wages while not offering the same level of fluency and understand-ability. Starting after the economic collapse, some rural localities in the US saw opportunity to attack that and offer competitive rates, drawing some call center work back. That's what happens over the long run as economic disparity eventually becomes less severe. But it took ~30 years for that cycle to happen.
Manufacturing is more complicated. While some in the US rail against regulations, unions, and other things that make it "hard" on businesses to conduct manufacturing operations here, it is not clear that there is a willingness to do the right things. Unions exist in large part due to abuses by employers, and to help keep wages at a livable rate. Regulations often exist for very good reasons as well. I don't really want the manufacturers around here spewing pollutants or doing dangerous things. OSHA exists to help keep workers safe and off the disability rolls. It is cheaper when you have some unseen company in Asia doing something without the oversight etc. This doesn't mean that that's a good solution, but it is a tradeoff made by many companies who have found American consumers expect to get all their stuff cheap-cheap-cheap. I might suggest that that last bit is a significant issue that we're unwilling to address.
Further, we have reached a point where a certain percentage of manufacturing has gone "lights out," which refers to factories where only a few workers are employed and much of the actual manufacturing has been automated. This has stark implications for the economy if it continues, which it is likely to. Even other businesses are looking to minimize employment. ATM's have eliminated many bank tellers. Self-checkout lanes have eliminated clerks at many stores. Company mergers whittle down overall employee counts. McDonald's desperately wants you to use their new ordering kiosks instead of interacting with an employee at the counter. Computerization and the Internet has replaced lots of customer support jobs. Etc. This seems likely to continue.
A lot of the traditional answer to job loss has been "re-train and re-educate." To the extent that new jobs exist, that's fine, but I'm really not sure what's going to happen to the three million truck drivers who are likely to lose their jobs in the coming years, etc. Where are millions of jobs going to come from? There is already significant evidence that the current "low" unemployment numbers are failing to account for underemployed and workers so discouraged by low demand for their skills that they are no longer seeking work. The
labor force participation rate may be more telling.
Now, to bring this around to a vaguely relevant-to-the-forum post, I'll point out that it is interesting that Foxconn has come to Wisconsin, a site I expect was selected in large part due to the ready availability of water from the world's largest fresh water supply, which their manufacturing processes require a lot of. I am skeptical of the claims of lots of high paying jobs in the long term for Wisconsin, although I'd be happy to be wrong. The past fifty years, as you note, has not shown a lot of manufacturing job creation in the US, and the motive for this move seems suspicious. Manufacturing their technology in the US isn't really resolving the issues we're discussing if it doesn't also create a crapton of jobs.
But if Samsung comes and opens a factory here, I'll see if I can hijack an autonomous semi via the Internet and then I'll sell stolen SSD's to everyone on the forum here cheap, hahaha!
Seriously, though, the continual downward slide of technology prices is driven by automation. This seems like it's in direct conflict with the issues we're discussing. :-/