Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a new multi-campus manufacturing training initiative Thursday aimed at preparing 3.8 million skilled workers by 2033 for jobs in the semiconductor, defense and energy industries.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a nationwide workforce initiative Thursday designed to rapidly expand the number of Americans trained for advanced manufacturing jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign production.
Speaking Sept. 3 at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, Vance and Rubio said the Foundry School will bring together the federal government, major universities, private-sector manufacturers and international partners to develop workers for industries considered critical to U.S. economic and national security.
WATCH:
The initiative is expected to prepare 3.8 million skilled workers by 2033 to fill projected vacancies in semiconductor production, defense manufacturing and the energy sector.
Vance said rebuilding the country’s industrial workforce is directly tied to national security.
“If America doesn’t have enough self-sufficiency in industry and manufacturing, our enemies are able to exploit it, and it makes our country much weaker,” he said.
He pointed to disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of the risks created by dependence on overseas manufacturing, noting that some surgeries were delayed because hospitals faced shortages of gowns and lacked sufficient domestically produced alternatives.
Vance also criticized decades of educational messaging that encouraged students to pursue white-collar careers while treating manufacturing and skilled trades as less desirable paths.
“There’s a much broader set of horizons out there,” Vance said.
“Working with your hands is very much the work of the future. And the idea that if you’re working with your hands, you’re not using your mind is one of the dumbest things that America’s leaders ever told a generation of American kids.”
The vice president argued that continued prosperity in sectors such as finance and technology ultimately depends on restoring the country’s capacity to manufacture goods domestically.
Rubio similarly framed the Foundry School as a long-term response to decades of American deindustrialization.
He said the United States has become “dangerously dependent on other nations” after allowing significant portions of its manufacturing base to move abroad.
Rubio emphasized that reversing that trend will require sustained commitment extending well beyond the current administration.
“This is not a two-year project. This is not a two-and-a-half-year project,” Rubio said. “Multiple American administrations are going to have to make this a priority.”
The State Department had previously announced that eight universities would form the academic backbone of the Foundry School initiative.
The participating institutions are Stanford University, Arizona State University, Ohio State University, Penn State University, Vanderbilt University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Kansas.
University leaders will work alongside CEOs and founders from advanced manufacturing companies as well as representatives from Pax Silica partner countries, including South Korea, Taiwan and India.
Together, the participants are expected to develop an education and training framework capable of producing workers at a scale significantly larger than traditional university or vocational programs.
Rather than operating as a single campus, the Foundry School will function across multiple institutions and combine academic instruction with direct participation from companies that need workers with specialized manufacturing skills.
The program has already planned 17 sessions in the months ahead covering areas that include modern factory design, materials and supply-chain management, and methods for expanding workforce development on a large scale.
The broader objective is to create a pipeline of workers capable of supporting industries Washington increasingly views as strategically essential.
Semiconductors are central to everything from consumer electronics and artificial intelligence to weapons systems and communications infrastructure, while the defense and energy sectors depend heavily on specialized manufacturing capabilities and resilient domestic supply chains.
The Foundry School initiative reflects the Trump administration’s broader effort to pair industrial policy with workforce development as it seeks to bring more production back to the United States.
Federal officials argue that increasing domestic manufacturing capacity will require more than building factories or attracting investment. It will also require millions of workers trained to operate sophisticated equipment, manage modern production systems and support increasingly complex supply chains.
Vance and Rubio said Thursday that the new program is intended to address that workforce shortage directly by combining government support, university expertise and private-sector demand into a coordinated national training effort.
Original article
Comments