I don’t think the US in its current form will ever actually onshore meaningful industry

We’re doing it with battery manufacturing as we speak. A big reason the Atlantic Coast is trending blue stems from re-shoring of automotive manufacturing, particularly with regard to EVs. In theory, we’d be doing it with semiconductor manufacturing, too, if we weren’t so far behind the curve.

What private investors want to do that when they can just buy real estate or insurance bonds or whatever, rent it or turn around and sell it all in a few years for a huge profit to some other investors trying to do the same?

Some private investors see value in real assets, even if they aren’t producing the immediate sky-high returns available in the IP markets. Yes, GE’s sort of blazed a trail of “don’t own anything except the debt of other industries” as a corporate model. But you’ve also got big energy producers like Exxon and construction companies like Bechtel that have huge investments in income generating capital projects. Even companies like Amazon and Microsoft are invested in data centers - which require material infrastructure, maintenance, energy, etc. For all the shit AI gets, its been an excuse to build out these enormous facilities for data processing that have value beyond whatever lies Sam Alton is telling people.

Trying to onshore industry to the US via protectionism won’t accomplish anything meaningful beyond “Americans can afford less shit.”

I disagree, but I guess we’ll see. I think onshoring means rebuilding the collapsed base of engineering, technical management, and logistics that we’ve let sag over the last 40 years. And I think it’s going to boost the quality of work for a vital sector of the national economy.