In a corner of Kentucky just outside of Louisville, family-owned shoe company Keen is opening a new factory this month.
The move fits neatly into the "America First" economic vision championed by the Trump administration - an emblem of hope for a manufacturing renaissance long promised but rarely realised. Yet beneath the surface, Keen's new factory tells a far more complicated story about what manufacturing in America really looks like today.
With just 24 employees on site, the factory relies heavily on automation -sophisticated robots that fuse soles and trim materials - underscoring a transformation in how goods are made today.
Manufacturing is no longer the labour-intensive engine of prosperity it once was, but a capital-heavy, high-tech enterprise.
Automation, in low cost of living area, with red-state employee “benefits” is what it takes to possibly make something as basic as domestically-made shoes affordable. That, and it’s not a publicly traded company so it might still be relatively expensive.
Western reliance on cheap Asian labour is a problem, especially when the cheap labour starts to think they want more.
MAGA isolationism is certainly not helping.