Should the U.S. start manufacturing more things here instead of importing everything from China?

Yes. I remember a time when I could read the label that said "made in the USA". My father wouldn't let us purchase anything made in China because it was "junk" and didn't support the US economy.
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The video is very old and outdated and corny, but the message was a good one. Maybe the US should have kept in mind that they needed to take care of their own country's people, instead of others.

That would be the smart thing to do. While this seems impossible, it can be done. We can impose tariffs on countries that do not pay their workers a certain minimum wage or provide any benefits.

While everyone who wants stuff cheap would certainly fret, remember that if Americans have factory jobs, there is more money all around to buy stuff with.

What we are doing now is subsidizing rich people all over the world by allowing them to avoid paying the true cost of labor (Health, living wage, retirement, etc.) by putting that burden elsewhere.

We don't have to do it this way.

The US is very cost ineffective nation. The pay scales are very high and the cost of living too.Countries like China,India and many others can be very cost productive because the labour is cheap and manufacturing costs are low.10 people in these countries can be employed on one persons salary paid in the US.Also there are no stringent labor rules to follow and no insurance to pay.To become more competetive the US will have to pay a big price.In India we live on a per capita income of a few hundred dollars, which cannot be done there!
You can live in less than a dollar a day here in these countries.!
I am sorry what I said here is a reality and it may not go down with the readers but it is the truth!

It's just not going to happen, there's really not even much point in arguing about it... manufacturing is unskilled-labor intensive, and that means it moves to where labor is cheaper. Labor is much cheaper in China than America, and nobody is going to get that genie back in the bottle.

Well, you could but Walmart won't buy your products to sell in their stores and if no retailer will carry your goods, you might as well not open up shop. The American consumer is so addicted to low prices that it would be financial madness to try to 're-educate' them.

We can't, the laws in this country, intended to protect the worker, have made it prohibative to compete with the likes of China and, in effect, have exported all our jobs and dependance overseas! Poor leadership and corrupt governments inevitably produce a suberviant and sub-par society. Stay tuned, US 2.0 will be a serious downgrade (kind of like the Vista release for MS) and it's been in development over the last thirty years and ready for release sometime next year :-)

Yeah but it cost more and they're in it for profits.

Well, I don't need so say anything, it seems you have gotten the answer already by just about everyone...

Yep, if a disease destroys China, we're screwed

The area of cheapest labour will always dictate where things are manufactured--until the world economy evens out.

Probably, but the difficulty is that with lower labor costs, it's cheaper for companies to make things in China (or in Mexico, and any number of other places).

So the only way to do what you suggest is to ban imports from other countries. Because if you make a widget here in the U.S. and it costs $10, and somebody else makes a widget in China for $4, the only way to stop somebody from buying the widget from China is to pass a law saying you can't buy widgets from China.