According to new economic reports, Manufaucturing in the US is as strong as it has been in years.
Star Tribune:
For the nine-state region — Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas — Goss found that factory employment, exports, inventories and confidence levels swelled significantly last month while new orders and sales remained strong.
The performance followed a host of recent positive earnings reports in which 3M, Polaris, Ecolab, Graco and Pentair revealed solid sales and adjusted profits that beat Wall Street expectations for the quarter ending Sept. 30.
Another report showed strikingly just as impressive numbers
In a separate national report Wednesday, the Institute of Supply Management reported a strong growth index of 58.7 for U.S. manufacturers in October. The figure slipped slightly from September’s extremely robust index of 60.8, which was the highest index since May 2004.
Jefferies LLC economist Thomas Simons noted that U.S. producers still performed “at a very high level” but experienced a slight slowing of growth for new orders, production, employment and inventories. Goss was not alarmed by the slight dip.
“Both the national and our regional indices indicate that the manufacturing sector is expanding at a very healthy pace and that this expansion will spill over into the broader national and regional economies in the next three to six months,” Goss said.
The regional manufacturing surge is welcome after a dismal 2016 in which many Midwest producers found themselves hampered by the high U.S. dollar, lackluster trade, slowed growth in China and several sectors throttled by economic downturns.
Industries weathering severe slowdowns last year included oil, mining, agricultural equipment and paper.
 The Democratic Party should take notes of what Trump is doing in the Midwest. It was the promises like he made to these people that got him elected. The fact that he is nailing this promise is only going to make his base stronger.