I think quite a few companies would love to try and compete with Asia on labor cost, and a good many have. I'm not trying to argue against the value of corporations or anything, but I think it's generally agreed that the goal of corporations is to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. To that end, companies are going to pursue profits (i.e. lowering labor costs) over creating good paying jobs whenever they can. I'm sure many CEO's would, in theory, prefer to keep middle class jobs over profits, but in reality many of them know that they will be replaced if they do. It's rare that they can have it both ways. Also, it seems to me that given the choice between creating a few middle class jobs or a larger number of subsistence level jobs, large corporations have more often chosen the latter. "creating" more jobs looks better on paper and it's easier to fire someone if you have a larger pool of candidates to replace them with, or, better yet, pick up their slack while being paid the same.
On the subject of unions, I was interested to see here, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm, that in 2016 only 10.7% of workers were union. I certainly agree that unions have traditionally been a force in keeping wages high, but I don't think they are really the best case to use as an example of US manufacturing as a whole. I'll be the first to say that I haven't really researched it, but it seems to me that quite a lot more then 11% percent of US manufacturers have moved their operations overseas.
On the subject of unions, I was interested to see here, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm, that in 2016 only 10.7% of workers were union. I certainly agree that unions have traditionally been a force in keeping wages high, but I don't think they are really the best case to use as an example of US manufacturing as a whole. I'll be the first to say that I haven't really researched it, but it seems to me that quite a lot more then 11% percent of US manufacturers have moved their operations overseas.