The Ekins-McCrea machinery plant is a small machinery factory with 40 workers located in the small town of Barr, Texas.The factory’s main business is to produce small batches of spare parts for some large companies across the United States, with about $3 or4 million a year, enough to make the days of partners Ethans and McGee comfortable.

The business of the Yimei factory is obtained through the network, and the old customers will send the drawings of the spare parts they need by email, the factory will produce according to the drawings, and then airlift the production of spare parts to these customers.The spare parts that customers need are often some non-standard accessories, the number of needed is less, and the time requirements are relatively high, so they will be produced by the Imei factory.If it is a large number of standard accessories, these customers often choose to go to China to find suppliers, because the production cost of Chinese enterprises is far lower than that of American companies, each accessory saves a dollar, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of accessories to save the cost, is very considerable.

However, in the past few days, the situation at the Yimei factory has changed dramatically, with orders flying like snowflakes from all over the United States, and many orders are in large quantities.When the first order was received, Eggins and McGee were astonished at the surprise, because such a large order was enough for the factory to be produced for several weeks, and the people who opened the factory did not like the order.But with subsequent orders sent one by one, the surprise of the two became fear.

“What’s going on, it’s not an April Fool’s joke?”Eggins asked his old partner, McGee.

“No, Mr. Fizel of Hyefield is also our old customer, and he offered us in one go to order 45 standard pieces, which is definitely not a prank.”McGee said.

"However, I heard that they had imported these standard parts from China before, and the Chinese standard parts were produced in large quantities, and the price was much cheaper than ours, why should Haifei order it from us?"

“It may have something to do with the tax increase introduced by the president.Have you paid attention to the news?The President ordered a 50 per cent tariff on metal imports from China, which is the standard piece of metal.”

“I’ve certainly followed the news, and I think this policy is a big good for us.However, I have calculated that even if the tariff increase by 50% is still cheaper from China to purchase standard parts than to us, you know, China's labor costs are much lower than ours, and our workers here are asking for a price too high."

"I don't know that."McGee scratched his scalp, who had little hair left, and said, "Anyway, it's a good thing for us to transfer orders from the Chinese to us."

Eakins and McGee did not know that a series of companies such as Hefei turned to the United States to purchase spare parts, which was under pressure from Mepp.Mpu has warned them that if they continue to use large quantities of accessories imported from China, the government will further increase the tax rate on these accessories and will impose sanctions on them through other means.Importing accessories from local US companies such as the Yimei factory, although it seems that the price is still higher than the Chinese parts after the tax increase, it has avoided the taboo of Mepp.

These days, in search of American homemade parts suppliers, Fistel, like his peers in other companies, has gone to great lengths.The United States is certainly not a large enterprise without a variety of standard parts, but the long-established division of labor system can be changed overnight.The U.S. imports tens of billions of dollars worth of spare parts from China every year, which is not something that a few large companies can digest, and Feisel must find the small and medium-sized enterprises that are hidden in the corner, send them orders, ask them to help complete the manufacture of some parts, and the business opportunities that the Emer factory has acquired these days is not accidental.

“Good thing?”Iggins said bitterly, “Meggie, if it’s just a Hymers order for us, that’s a good thing.”But these days, we have received more than 40 orders, we have to produce these orders, at least five years.And, as far as I can estimate, this is just the beginning, and we will receive more orders in the next step, which we will not be able to complete in fifty years.”

“Perhaps we should expand the scale of production.”McGee said.

Mr. Eakins nodded, “Look now, if there are more orders in the next few days, we’ll consider the question of scaling up production.”

The situation in the next few days, in full doctiating with Eggins’s guess, more orders were coming from all over, and many orders were marked with tips such as “quick, online, etc.”These orders on the spare parts, the manufacturing process is not complex, with the technical strength of the Imei plant, is fully able to win, Eggins and McGee need to do, just expand the scale of production.Both men were doers, and seeing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich, they immediately raised their sleeves and began to arrange.

The desire to do good must first profit, and such a truth applies even in the United States.The first thing to do is to purchase equipment.Iggins dialed a phone from a machine tool supplier in Texas and offered to purchase five German Emark horizontal machining centers.

“No problem at all!”The other side's answer is very refreshing, "each horizontal processing center of 170,000 US dollars, if you buy 5 at a time, we can give you a discount, each down to 160,000, 5 units a total of 800,000."

“Twenty-one thousand!”Eggins irritated, “Each 160,000, do you still say it’s a discount?”Just a year ago, I bought the same machining center from your company, and the price was only 120,000.”

"It is true, but, Mr. Eggins, have you forgotten the tax thing?"This horizontal machining center of EMAG is manufactured at their manufacturing base in China and therefore belongs to Chinese products.In accordance with the government's new policy of increasing tariffs on Chinese products, each processing center will increase import tariffs by $40,000.”The other explained.

“All right...” Eggins responded tremblingly.

"Then, Mr. Eggins, do you need these five machines?"

"I think we need it, but allow me to talk to my partner."

Putting down the phone, Ekins rubbed his forehead and said to McGee, "Meggie, it seems that raising taxes on Chinese products is not all good, the machine tool we want to buy, the price has risen by 30%."

“It’s just a machine.”McGee said, "Just now when you called, I counted, in addition to the machine tools, we also need to purchase a number of process equipment, such as fixtures, trays, push parts of the cart, and most of these things are made in China, I estimate that their prices have risen by 30% to 50%."

“Shit, then the profits we make from these orders are taken by Mepp!”Eggins couldn’t help but poignantly.People who do not practice do not know, a factory needs a variety of things, the lack of the same will bring all kinds of trouble.To give a simple example, you want to send the product with a glue strip to the customer, at least a cutter for tearing the strip?Taobao price less than 1 dollar a little play, but it is also made in China!

"There's another problem, and I don't have a solution right now."“To complete the order at hand, we need to expand production at least five times, which means we need to hire 200 new workers.”But I thought for a moment that the whole town of Bar would not be able to gather 200 workers."

“You can only recruit from somewhere else.”Eggins said.

McGee shook his head and said, "I don't think it's easy to recruit from anywhere else."

"In some towns around, there are still a lot of unemployed people, and it should be difficult to gather 200 people?"Eggins said.

“It’s not hard to find 200 unemployed people, but not all of them can work.What do we need are skilled workers, and you can find a few unemployed skilled workers throughout the town of Barr?”

“This...” Eakins was a little blind, and he thought of his neighbor to the left and right, and unexpectedly found that McGee was right.Among the unemployed he knew, Jones was a second-rate man, idle all day long, and I was afraid to recruit a master to serve him; Louisa was clever and virtuous, but the factory needed a man with strength, Louisa as a bartender to put a plate, how to do the factory work; and old Tony, who was working in the factory, but he seemed to be able to pick up his skills 20 years ago?

Skilled workers need to be trained and trained to develop, the United States has been de-industrialized for a long time, of more than 300 million people, only 13 million people engaged in manufacturing.A large number of young people have never entered the factory, and it is a very challenging task to let these people take off their earrings and stand on the production line.

“I wonder how the Chinese did it?”Eggins asked McGee.

"I'm thinking about that too."McGee said, “We just got such a little order and we couldn’t digest it.”These orders were sent to the Chinese, are the Chinese all superhuman?”

This is really not to blame the two brothers did not see, a considerable number of Americans for their own living outside the town, in fact, there is a lack of understanding, not to mention China far beyond the ocean.They have not seen China from TV or movies, but they have not told them why the Chinese can make so many products, on the contrary, these TVs and movies show that China is a very backward place, where the people are shaggy, godless, occasionally literate, or back from studying in the United States, and it is the kind of depressing.

"Meggie, I think it's necessary for us to go to China and see what's going on there."Eggins said.

"I think it's necessary too."McGee nodded solemnly.