Manufacturing, which is crucial to a prosperous economic future, is waning. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve found that manufacturing activity in the Mid-Atlantic region dropped from +5.1 in July to -7.7 in August. Economists had expected it to reach +7.0. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released findings on August 20 that show onshoring has declined over the past two years. Only 4.5 percent of manufacturers surveyed indicated that they had brought work back to the U.S. since the beginning of the year, compared to 6.2 percent in a survey two years ago.

The American economy has mired, and there has been no real recovery for the majority of America. The U.S. Labor Department released figures showing the number of Americans filing first claims for unemployment benefits hit 500,000 last week, a 12,000 increase from the week before and the highest since last November, USA Today noted. The peak in that category was 651,000 in March 2009, from which the picture improved until July 10 when the number dropped to 427,000. Now the tally of first-time filers is rising.

Economist Bill Cheney at MFC Global Investment Management called the news “another little drip of water torture. The longer the economy stays in this stalling-out range, the more worrying it gets,” he observed.

As more negative figures get released the difficulty and longevity of a recovery increases. Our government must take action to provide incentives for manufacturers to return to the United States. Our government must implement policies that will restore our trade balance. America can no longer be the sole contender in the battle for “free” trade.

Our country is unable to defend our own exports and companies because the WTO forces regulations and specific trade policies, and if the U.S. attempts to defend itself, other countries flock to the WTO, which consistently rules against us. The United States must take a hiatus from the WTO. The WTO charter specifically states that a country experiencing an extremely negative balance of trade can withdraw from the WTO. This is exactly what the U.S. needs to do.

In theory, this is how trends begin. People become informed, push for certain policies, and the government implements them or faces electoral consequences. Let’s put that theory into practice. It took a number of years to offshore our manufacturing base, and it will take time to get it back. We must act quickly though because the longer we delay, the more difficult the transition will be. If we wait too long, it will be too late entirely.

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