When President Trump told the world on “Liberation Day” last year that foreigners had “torn apart our once-beautiful American dream,” his plan to restore it promised “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.” Analysts and business moguls were dubious of the “America First” agenda. Coupled with sweeping tariffs on the entire world, many were concerned that nationalism may result in America ending up alone. Citadel’s Ken Griffin was among those who weren’t sold on the scheme, and 18 months after Trump’s famed Rose Garden address, the billionaire CEO has declared tariffs a “disaster.”
Griffin suggested the plan to reindustrialize the nation to restore the American dream was flawed from the outset. Speaking at the Citadel Securities Future of Global Markets yesterday. Griffin said: “To be blunt, like, I hate to say it, but I’ve been right. It’s been pro-inflation.”
“It has certainly taken supply chains around the world and severed them. And we’re not going to industrialize efficiently in our country. Unemployment’s low [4.2%], like if you have this dream of an industrialized America, number one is most people don’t want to live that dream. They don’t want to be in factories making Nike’s and T-shirts.”
It’s a phenomenon that analysts have observed trickling through the labor market: Moody’s chief economist, Mark Zandi, noted this summer that native-born unemployment among Americans had begun to rise, based on analysis of a 12-month moving average of seasonally unadjusted data. Part of the reason for this, Zandi told Fortune, is that U.S.-born workers don’t want to take on the jobs historically held by immigrant workers for relatively lower wages.
“It just goes to show how difficult many of these jobs are,” Zandi said. “Native-born workers would take them, but it would require much, much higher wages … [and that] would make it uneconomic for the businesses to actually produce whatever it is they’re doing.”
He added: “These jobs are typically ones that are very difficult, very arduous jobs that require a lot of physical hardship, and the native-born workers just haven’t done these jobs for quite some time and are in no mood to take them now—certainly not at these wages.”
Bring in the robots
Instead, Griffin advocated for robotics—increasingly advanced thanks to artificial intelligence—to carry out U.S. manufacturing of essential goods efficiently. In September, Griffin announced a $3 billion gift to Carnegie Mellon University Miami, to pursue the “next era of American innovation.”
“We want re-industrialized America to be a really industrialized America with robotics running our factories,” Griffin said. “Like, that’s forward-thinking. That’s how our country secures greater independence from the rest of the world on items that are important to our national interests.”
But this suggestion may also divide opinion. The St Louis Fedestimates that approximately 12.6 million Americans are employed in the manufacturing sector, predominantly in electrical and component manufacturing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry made up 7.4% of total employment in 2025 and was expected to contribute 7.2% by 2035.
So while the sector is not as significant to the employment picture as retail, healthcare, or state and local government, it remains a lifeline to millions—which is why Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggested a robot tax in an August essay.
“A tax would slow the rush away from human labor a little and raise money for retraining and a stronger safety net,” Gates said, “It would need to be targeted so it does not slow down the purely beneficial uses of AI, like making medicine and education cheaper.”
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