Apple Computer is among the companies moving to Texas and bringing with it jobs, manufacturing and prestige as major companies work to return to producing more goods in America.
Apple said last week it plans to move manufacturing of its Apple Mini computer from Asia to a Southeast Texas plant, and it’s just one of many companies that are planning to build new production in the US.
“It’s yet another sign, another validation that manufacturers increasingly see domestic production as a source of resilience, speed and strategic control,” according to economic growth strategist Dan Verroney.
And it’s not just good for the US to have companies bring their manufacturing back to America — called “repatriation” or the returning of businesses to where they began — it can be great for Texas too, but there is work to be done to make that happen.
The executive director of the Free Market Institute, Benjamin Powell, also notes that “Repatriation happens in response to market forces — it’s a good sign that companies are making good decisions in locating production where it’s most efficient.
Verroney, who’s also founder and CEO of Potomac Care, says, “If we want this to become a manufacturing wave here in the US and in Texas, we have to make it easier to build, invest, train workers and expand here.”
And although some of the return of businesses and jobs from overseas is coming because of other incentives, some economic analysts say the effort was undoubtedly helped by President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill,” which extended some key international tax provisions, making them more favorable in repatriating foreign earnings for US businesses.
Benjamin Powell, though, a free market advocate and Texas Tech Professor of Economics, says it’s important to be careful in bringing economic incentives to returning companies to their American beginnings.
“We should not have policies encouraging repatriation because that just distorts the company’s decision making and leads them to manufacture things in the wrong location and less efficiently than they should.
“I don’t think we should rejoice if can re-import some sweatshop jobs from Bangladesh that we used to have in the 1920s.”
But overall, they say, a computer production facility in the Houston area is a natural for high-tech manufacturing in a city with a well-education and trained workforce from which to hire is a remarkable return for Texas.