Chapter 206 The Manufacturing Dilemma

Mu Xin stayed in the South Side for another four days.

On the first day, he bought the vacant warehouse across from the church. The landlord was a seventy-year-old man who owned over a dozen industrial properties in the South Side, all purchased in the 1970s back when the factories in the South Side hadn't moved away yet.

When the old man heard that Mu Xin wanted to use it for a solar power training workshop, he gave him a 30% discount on the asking price.

"My father ran a stamping plant in this district for forty years. When he died, there were still thirty workers in the workshop."

"It's been a long time since anyone told me they wanted to build anything in the South Side. Selling it to you makes both me and my father very happy."

On the second day, the construction crew arrived. Parks had found a small local construction company in the South Side. The boss's surname was Jackson, and he had over a dozen Black construction workers under him who previously specialized in municipal engineering subcontracts.

On the third day, the Tesla energy storage equipment arrived: six Powerwalls and two Megapack commercial energy storage cabinets.

Parks stood at the church entrance watching the forklift unload the equipment from the truck, then turned to ask Mu Xin roughly how much all of this had cost.

Mu Xin didn't speak. Parks smiled and said, "I have preached the Bible for thirty years, and this is the first time I've felt that someone is doing good in a more effective way than I am."

Mu Xin chuckled softly. He knew in his heart that this wasn't doing good; it was a naked transaction.

The solar panels, inverters, energy storage systems, and other miscellaneous items were all Tesla products.

It wasn't because Tesla's solar panels were technically superior to other brands; it was because when the letters 'Tesla' were printed on the roof of Parks' church, the first reaction of anyone who saw it would be: 'This is a Tesla project.'

Tesla belongs to Musk, and Musk is an American with a position in Trump's circle, so keeping a distance is safe for Parks, and it's also safe for Mu Xin.

On the morning of the fourth day, Mu Xin and Parks went to the Chicago Department of Buildings and signed the building permit application. After leaving the building, Parks asked Mu Xin when he was heading back to Ohio.

"I'm leaving this afternoon."

"So soon?"

"My business here is done. You help me keep an eye on the rest." Mu Xin turned to look at Parks.

"I can't stay in Chicago to watch over this all the time. You handle the follow-up construction."

"Send me a progress report once a week. You have more experience than I do when it comes to any administrative or political issues."

"If things involve funds, equipment, or any project-related issues, come directly to me; I'm more professional in those areas."

He returned to Oxford Town that evening. Jessica sent a message saying that the manor's master suite was preliminarily completed and asked when he would come to see it.

Mu Xin replied with a "Probably tomorrow...", then locked himself in his office.

Everything he had done in Chicago over the past four days—meeting with Parks, negotiating with Cartwright, installing solar panels in the South Side, and donating Tesla equipment to the church roof—was all for the sake of the Pritzker connection.

And the ultimate goal of that Pritzker connection wasn't just a piece of certification from Illinois; it was a prelude to a much bigger game.

But a prelude is always just a prelude. To make the people on the other side truly take notice, he needed an action that would create an echo.

Manufacturing.

Mu Xin leaned back in his office chair, deep in thought for a long time, then opened his computer and began to search for the status of various industries one by one.

Forget about the internet.

The capital density and talent density of Silicon Valley are things Oxford Town could never replicate. Competing with Silicon Valley in the internet industry is like competing with a camel in the desert to see who can store more water.

Forget about AI, too. The current AI technology roadmap is still in a period of violent fluctuation; foundational large models are monopolized by a few giants, and the application layer hasn't found a stable path to monetization yet.

Rushing in now would either mean becoming an appendage in a giant's ecosystem or dying during the next shift in the technological roadmap—neither of which are outcomes he wants.

What Trump wants is the return of manufacturing. This is something he has been shouting about since his first term in office, and he's still shouting about it in his second term.

But after shouting for so long, the number of manufacturing jobs that have actually returned to the United States is nowhere near the figures he promised.

Money isn't the problem; the issue is that the gravitational acceleration of the global supply chain is too strong.

The components of an iPhone are produced in forty-seven countries. To replicate all forty-seven of these links within the United States, the cost of supply chain reconstruction alone would drive Apple's profit margins back to where they were before Steve Jobs returned.

The biggest obstacle the United States currently faces isn't high tariffs, nor is it the labor cost advantage in China; it is that the industrial middle layer in the United States has already died.

The middle layer of the supply chain doesn't refer to terminal assembly plants like Foxconn; it refers to medium-sized factories that can provide component support, open molds within forty-eight hours of receiving an order, and independently complete heat treatment and precision machining.

If you drive for an hour around Shenzhen, you can find hundreds of such factories.

In the United States, within the same distance, you are most likely to find only one material supplier, and they are only responsible for supplying you with materials; don't even think about things like heat treatment.

Trump can pressure China on tariffs, but tariffs cannot replace the industrial middle layer.

Manufacturing reshoring has been shouted about for so many years, but what truly traps it isn't policy—it's reality.

But precisely because it is difficult, only those who succeed can be seen.

Mu Xin typed a few keywords into the search bar.

Electronics manufacturing.

TSMC invested 40 billion to build a factory in Arizona. In the field of chip manufacturing, competing for territory with TSMC is worse than just donating money to their competitors and praying that they survive.

Auto parts.

The three major automakers have supply chain systems in Michigan and Ohio, but that system is locked down by long-term contracts; newcomers can only eat the scraps.

Medical devices.

The profit margins are large enough, but the certification cycle is too long. FDA approval can drag a product out from R&D to market, consuming capital every single day.

Aerospace components.

The threshold for this industry is even higher. Boeing and Airbus's supplier lists have been accumulated over generations; a newcomer can't even get the qualification to submit samples.

Pharmaceuticals.

The patent barriers are even thicker than those for aerospace components.

Textiles.

It is impossible to ever surpass Asia in terms of labor costs.

Photovoltaic modules.

The crystalline silicon route has already been locked by China, and the conversion rate of the thin-film route can never catch up. Building your own photovoltaic plant is like throwing a meat bun to snatch a bone out of a dog's mouth.

Energy storage batteries.

The combined production capacity of CATL and BYD could fill the global market twice over.

Electric vehicles.

Tesla is unavoidable in the United States. Although it's garbage, who let Chinese electric vehicles be unable to enter the United States...

Mu Xin took his hands off the keyboard, feeling a bit of a headache.

Manufacturing requires choosing a direction, a location, a technological roadmap, and partners. If any link is chosen incorrectly, the invested time and capital will turn into a pile of scrap metal eaten up by depreciation schedules.

He glanced at the date on his phone; there were less than two weeks until the end of the year.

The Pritzker connection was waiting for the verification data from the South Side. Cartwright had said that they wouldn't submit the application without operational records.

Jack was still investigating the Trump connection, but a path to meet the core circle hadn't been found yet.

Both lines needed time.

Before then, he had many things he could do.

Hotels, theme Parks, Medical Center... these were all cards in his hand.