U.S. Manufacturing Hits $2.91 Trillion All-Time High

Article Summary

U.S. manufacturing reached a record $2.91 trillion in value added in 2024, making it the world’s eighth-largest economy, but the industry faces a critical shortage of skilled workers with nearly 3.8 million positions needing to be filled by 2033.

• $2.91 trillion in U.S. manufacturing value added in 2024, an all-time nominal record that would rank as the world’s eighth-largest economy if standalone
• 54 ISM Manufacturing PMI reading in May 2024, the strongest since May 2022, signaling broad expansion across new orders, production, and order backlogs
• $2.42 trillion in cumulative foreign direct investment in U.S. manufacturing, led by Japan ($819 billion), making manufacturing the largest FDI sector in America
• 3.8 million workers needed by 2033, with 1.9 million positions at risk of remaining unfilled without action to increase skilled workforce training
• 409,000 open manufacturing positions as of August 2025, with 65% of manufacturers citing talent attraction and retention as their top business challenge

U.S. manufacturing hit a record $2.91 trillion in 2024, and the momentum has continued: the ISM Manufacturing PMI reached 54 in May, its strongest reading since 2022. 

Factory construction spending more than doubled from 2021-2024. And, foreign companies have committed $2.42 trillion to U.S. manufacturing, more than to any other sector in the United States, according to MISUMI Americas’ The Rise of U.S. Manufacturing report.

“The investment case for American manufacturing has never been stronger — record output, a historic construction cycle, trillions in committed foreign capital. What we see with our customers every day is that the next constraint isn’t capital. It’s having enough people with the right advanced skills to run these new facilities at full capacity. The good news is that American students are already moving toward skilled trades and technical training. H.R. 9097 builds directly on that momentum by sending workers to learn from the countries — Japan, Germany, South Korea — that have spent decades perfecting advanced manufacturing training and bringing that expertise home,” says Dave Evans, president and CEO, MISUMI Americas and CEO, Fictiv.

Key takeaways:

• $2.91 trillion: U.S. manufacturing value added in 2024, an all-time nominal record. This single sector would rank as the world’s eighth-largest economy if it stood alone, ahead of France and just behind the United Kingdom. The figure reflects current, not inflation-adjusted, dollars, so part of the gain comes from manufacturers producing more goods and part comes from higher prices.
• 54 PMI: the ISM Manufacturing PMI reading for May 2026, the strongest since May 2022 and a clear signal of expansion. The index spent most of 2025 below the 50-point threshold that separates growth from contraction, making this a meaningful reversal. New orders, production, and order backlogs all expanded that month, the broadest improvement in factory activity in roughly four years.
• $235.6 billion: peak annual factory construction spending in 2024, nearly triple the roughly $81.9 billion spent in 2021. Semiconductor fabs and EV battery plants, fueled by the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act, drove the majority of that increase. The pace has since moderated to roughly $196 billion by January, though spending remains more than double pre-boom levels.
• $2.42 trillion: cumulative foreign direct investment (FDI) in U.S. manufacturing, led by Japan, Canada, and Germany. Manufacturing is now the single largest sector for inbound foreign investment in the country, representing more than 42% of all FDI in the United States. Japan alone accounts for over $819 billion of that total, more than any other country invests in any single U.S. industry.
• 2 million-plus: reshoring and FDI jobs announced since 2010, including a record 364,000 in a single year, 2022. The vast majority of recent announcements, 88% in 2024, are in high or medium-high technology manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, electronics, and electric vehicles. Roughly 1.7 million of those announced jobs have already been filled.
• 3.8 million: additional manufacturing workers the industry will need by 2033, with 1.9 million of those positions at risk of going unfilled without action. Of that 3.8 million, roughly 2.8 million comes from workers retiring and the remainder from new growth, including jobs tied directly to the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. More than 65% of manufacturers already cite attracting and retaining talent as their single biggest business challenge.
• 20% growth since Spring 2020: enrollment at high-vocational community colleges, a workforce already responding to the opportunity. Undergraduate certificate programs have grown for four consecutive years, evidence that students are choosing faster, skills-focused pathways into manufacturing careers. Even so, total enrollment at these institutions remains well under one million students nationwide, a fraction of the workforce the industry will need to recruit and train by 2033.
• What the data also shows is that the workforce has not yet scaled to match it. Nearly 2.8 million of the 3.8 million workers needed through 2033 comes from retiring employees, replacing the current workforce, not just expanding it. There were 409,000 open manufacturing positions as of August 2025, and 65% of manufacturers cite attracting and retaining skilled talent as their top challenge.
• Enrollment at high-vocational community colleges is up nearly 20% since Spring 2020, and undergraduate certificate programs have grown for four consecutive years. The pipeline is moving in the right direction — it simply needs to move faster and reach deeper into advanced, specialized skills that take years to build domestically but already exist abroad.

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$9 Trillion Is Pouring Into American Manufacturing — And It’s Just Getting Started

Apple, Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor, Eli Lilly, and dozens of other major companies have committed nearly $9 trillion in U.S. manufacturing investment in under a year. Former CIA and Pentagon advisor Jim Rickards says most people are missing the bigger story underneath it all.

Washington, D.C., May 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In less than a year, some of the largest corporations on Earth have committed a staggering $9 trillion to build, expand, and relocate manufacturing operations on American soil. Jim Rickards has released a free video presentation examining what he believes is the most important and least-covered story underneath those headline numbers — and why he says most Americans are looking at only the surface of what is actually unfolding.

Apple has pledged $500 billion for a new advanced manufacturing facility in Houston. Nvidia has announced plans to invest as much as $500 billion. Taiwan Semiconductor is putting $100 billion toward manufacturing advanced chips domestically. Eli Lilly is investing $50 billion to establish four new U.S. manufacturing sites. Hyundai, GE Aerospace, Abbott Laboratories, and dozens of others are following suit.

It’s a wave of capital flowing into American industry at a scale that hasn’t been seen in generations. And according to Jim Rickards — an economist, best-selling author, and former advisor to the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House — most people are focused on the headline number without asking the question that actually matters.

“You cannot have an industrial boom without energy from coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear power,” Rickards said. “And you cannot have an industrial boom without metals like copper, iron ore, rare earth elements, lithium, and silicon.”

In other words, $9 trillion in new factories means an unprecedented surge in demand for the raw materials required to build and power them. And Rickards believes almost nobody is paying attention to what that means.

The Supply Chain Nobody’s Watching

Every new manufacturing facility requires steel, copper, concrete, and wiring. Every factory that comes online needs a power source. Every piece of advanced technology rolling off a new production line depends on critical minerals — many of which the U.S. currently imports almost entirely from abroad.

After years of offshoring production and neglecting domestic mining, the United States now relies on China for 100% of 15 key minerals. These are the materials that go into fighter jets, electric vehicle batteries, smartphones, laptops, and the semiconductor chips that the new factories are being built to produce.

“We’re completely dependent on our number one strategic competitor,” Rickards said. “That’s a huge problem for America.”

The $9 trillion in new manufacturing investment doesn’t just represent a reshoring trend. Rickards argues it represents a structural surge in demand for resources that the U.S. doesn’t currently produce at anywhere near sufficient scale.

A Government Response Unlike Anything in Modern History

Rickards’s presentation points to an aggressive federal push to close that gap — one he says has no modern precedent in scope or speed.

Earlier this year, an executive order titled “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” directed federal agencies to ramp up mining operations on public lands. The Financial Times has estimated those lands hold as much as $100 trillion in untapped mineral wealth.

Through a program called FAST-41, critical mining projects are being fast-tracked from permitting timelines that once stretched to 10 years down to a matter of weeks. The Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada received its federal permits in just 89 days. The stated goal is to push that timeline down to 28 days.

“This is a true game-changer for the industry,” Rickards said. “A lot of big investors want nothing to do with mining projects because it normally could take over a decade for them to see any return. But with these accelerated permits, that entire equation has changed.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has captured the administration’s posture in a single phrase: “Everybody likes to say, ‘drill, baby, drill.’ I know that President Trump has another initiative for us, which is ‘mine, baby, mine.’”

The Pentagon Is Buying Mining Companies

Beyond regulatory changes, the federal government has taken an even more unusual step — investing directly in mining companies.

The Department of Defense put $400 million into MP Materials, a rare earth producer, becoming the company’s largest shareholder. As part of the deal, the government agreed to purchase the company’s output at a guaranteed floor price.

“The company now basically has a guaranteed buyer for its products,” Rickards said in his presentation. “The best kind of buyer you can ask for — a buyer with unlimited spending power. The U.S. government.”

A $35 million federal investment followed in Trilogy Metals, securing critical mining operations in Alaska. Reports indicate the administration is planning a direct equity stake in Lithium Americas. And a $5 billion mining investment fund is in the works, designed to take direct stakes in companies producing critical minerals domestically.

The CEO of the National Mining Association, Rich Nolan, has called it “the New Deal for minerals” — comparing the scale to FDR’s infrastructure programs during the Great Depression.

A Pattern That’s Repeated Throughout History

Rickards’s presentation says this isn’t theory. It’s a pattern that has played out before — and the results were staggering.

In the early 2000s, China’s state-backed industrialization effort consumed twice as much steel between 2000 and 2020 as the United States used during the entire 20th century. That state-driven demand triggered what economists call a supercycle — a sustained, multi-year boom in the value of metals, energy, and raw materials.

Rickards believes the same dynamic is now emerging in the United States, driven by two forces converging at once: a government-backed push to rebuild American industry, and a wave of nearly $9 trillion in private capital pouring in on top of it.

“Throughout history, every single industrialization effort has been powered by natural resources,” Rickards said. “I honestly never thought I would see another supercycle in my lifetime. But here we are.”

He’s not alone in that view. Adam Rozencwajg, who manages a natural resource hedge fund, has called this “the best opportunity that I’ve seen probably in the 150-odd years that we’ve been studying these markets.”

The Connection Most People Haven’t Made

Rickards believes the core disconnect is that most Americans see the manufacturing headlines — Apple building in Houston, Nvidia expanding domestically, chip fabs going up across the country — and think of it as a jobs story or a trade story. What they’re not seeing, he says, is the cascade of demand those commitments create underneath.

More factories mean more power consumption. More power means more nuclear energy, more natural gas, more uranium. More advanced manufacturing means more copper, more lithium, more rare earth elements. And all of it has to come from somewhere.

“After many years of underinvestment in the mining sector, we now rely on China for 100% of 15 key minerals,” Rickards said. “That’s why the response you’re seeing now is so aggressive. And that’s why I believe this is just the beginning.”

Rickards has published his full analysis through his research service, which is followed by thousands of readers nationwide.

About the Presentation

Jim Rickards’ full video presentation is free to watch and available for on-demand viewing at no cost. To access the complete session, click here.

About Jim Rickards and Paradigm Press

Jim Rickards is an economist, best-selling author, and former advisor to the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House. Across nearly five decades in international finance, he played direct roles in the resolution of the Iran hostage crisis, the creation of the Petrodollar Accord, and the Federal Reserve’s response to the Long-Term Capital Management banking crisis. His books, including Currency Wars and The Death of Money, have been widely read across both Wall Street and the intelligence community. His work is published by Paradigm Press, an independent financial research firm. The publisher maintains a 4.8-star rating on Google across more than 1,900 public reviews from readers who follow its research and commentary.

CONTACT: Derek Warren Public Relations Manager Paradigm Press Group Email: dwarren@paradigmpressgroup.com

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