economic progress, and wealth primarily come from an increase in productivity . . .

KRUGMAN: No matter what Trump does, manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the US

. . . which primarily comes from reduction in labor cost due to fewer workers. This is not limited to the industrial sector, it happened in the agricultural sector already, reducing employment from about 80% of the "workforce" to about 2%. This is what is happening to the industrial sector. 

But the way it is happening is not normal, or natural. We should have seen a shift to more jobs from imported goods, and new manufacturing driven by new industries created by these imports, but because we allow tariffs, the import sector is less robust than if unencumbered. As such, these jobs which would have helped to take up some of the slack in the transition to the new economic model have been lost due to negative government meddling. 

Trump can help create a partial bridge over this difficult economic shift from the old industrial economic model to the new economic model, but he will need to eliminate tariffs, and likely eliminate the corporate income tax. This would encourage more imports, and the direct jobs these imports create. It would allow more manufacturing jobs related to using these new imports as materials used in additional manufacturing. The elimination of the corporate income tax would encourage a return to the US of a large amount of offshore money which is simply being kept offshore due to US tax rates. It would also encourage many manufacturing businesses to relocate to the US for our low energy prices, our high quality workforce, and out zero corporate income tax rate. This would also plump up manufacturing employment.

As Krugman says this is not a long term strategy for returning employees to manufacturing. He is correct, manufacturing will continue to bleed workers, to our benefit. The result will be lower costs and higher quality. We do have an obligation to make the economy as dynamic as possible so all workers have the best opportunity possible of finding a good new job as old jobs are eliminated. These policies would help ensure that change.

In addition, Trump needs to do everything possible to streamline the ability of the new gig economy to evolve to its mature state with as little government meddling as possible. Government can make a hash of this transition by interfering but it cannot make it better, or more productive by meddling, it can only make things worse for everyone. 

The last time the economic model changed it did so without governments heavy hand mucking up the works. We we less wealthy then, and the process was difficult, we are more wealthy now, and the process is likely to be smoother. Regardless, involving government will only result in delays, and inefficiencies which will be costly to all of us.