Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a powerful speech Thursday at the Foundry School, a new national program that seeks to train the next generation of entrepreneurs, engineers, technicians, and industrial leaders needed to rebuild American manufacturing.
Throughout his remarks, Rubio decried the failure of globalism, calling the American experiment with it a “terrible mistake” that offshored the nation’s manufacturing base and left the United States dependent on foreign countries for even the most basic components. He praised the Trump administration’s efforts to reverse decades of mismanagement that followed the end of the Cold War, while cautioning that restoring American industrial strength will require the work of multiple administrations.
🚨 WOW! Marco Rubio just went full America First, absolutely NAILING IT:
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 3, 2026
"The nation states still does matter. NATIONALISM still matters. National BORDERS still matter!"
"I think we made a terrible mistake in this country...the idea that the ability to make things no longer… pic.twitter.com/CRQTrN9KtM
"I think we made a terrible mistake in this country," the Secretary of State said. "Not many years ago, under people that were in charge at the time, especially at the end of the Cold War, and that was the idea that the ability to make things no longer mattered. It didn't matter any longer where things were made. They were to be made in the most efficient place, at the lowest possible cost. That meant more profits for the company, lower costs for the consumers, and that was the way the world would work."
The story becomes even more complicated when you recognize that American politicians pursued this course under the false banner of free markets. The United States layered regulation upon regulation onto domestic manufacturers, making it increasingly expensive and difficult to produce goods at home. At the same time, it opened American markets to foreign competitors that faced none of those constraints and were often backed by state subsidies, protectionism, and industrial policy. Rather than being a lesson in the failure of free enterprise, it is a lesson in what happens when government decides which producers get to be competitive.
"There was this fantasy, really, that the whole world would become a free enterprise, democracies, and that everyone would look like us," Rubio said. "That ran into reality, the reality that that is not how human events have ever worked, that the nation-state still does matter, nationalism is still real, national borders still matter, and that countries are going to always act in their best interest."
"But the result of it is that it deindustrialized America. We lost our ability and our capacity to make things, and not just big things, not just the kinds of big machinery and things that we normally identify with industry, but even some of the most basic components that are necessary, that underpin economic life, especially in the 21st century, and we woke up to the reality just a few years ago that we are suddenly, as a nation, dangerously dependent, dangerously dependent on other nations for all sorts of things that we need, not simply for our economic vibrancy, but in many cases for our national security and our very survival as a prosperous nation-state," the Secretary of State continued.
"And so now we are involved in this endeavor across the board to try to reverse those mistakes, and it will be the work of multiple administrations, but it starts here and it starts now with this one that is receiving attention at its highest levels," he said.
This comes as American advancements in artificial intelligence appear to be advancing much of the same goal: driving job growth in manufacturing, the trades, and technology simultaneously. Unlike any other industrial initiative, however, AI is achieving this through the private sector, making American industry more competitive and, in turn, reviving it.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.
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