JD Vance's Manufacturing Reshoring Agenda Could Revitalize Struggling Towns Like St. Cloud, MN
Source: "JD Vance's manufacturing push resonates with struggling St. Cloud | Fox News." September 27, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
The author visited St. Cloud, Minnesota, and found a town that's neither thriving nor dying—half its downtown storefronts are empty, but the businesses that remain are surprisingly busy. He argues that JD Vance's push to bring manufacturing jobs back to America is exactly what a town like this needs, because even a modest number of new factory or tech jobs could tip the scales and bring the town back to life.
Conclusion
JD Vance's policy focus on reshoring manufacturing and rewarding companies that keep jobs in America is a particularly well-suited solution for economically stagnant small cities like St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Premises
- St. Cloud has visible signs of economic decline: nearly half of downtown commercial space is empty, a historic department store (Herberger's) closed in 2018, several area factories shut down, and the university dropped its football program in 2019.
- Despite this decline, the businesses that remain open in St. Cloud are thriving, with packed restaurants even on weekday afternoons, suggesting there is untapped demand waiting to be unlocked.
- Because St. Cloud is a relatively small city (~80,000 people), a modest number of new jobs—such as one factory with 1,500 positions and one tech employer with 300-500 workers—could meaningfully revive downtown foot traffic and business activity.
- Local residents and business owners describe the town as 'plateaued'—not actively declining but not growing either—indicating it is at a tipping point where new investment could tip it toward growth.
- A local vintage store owner who opened right after Trump's inauguration in 2025 has already expanded to a second location, suggesting the business environment is primed for growth under the right conditions.
Assumptions
- Reshoring policies championed by Vance would actually succeed in directing new manufacturing and tech jobs to specific small towns like St. Cloud rather than larger metro areas.
- The town's economic stagnation stems primarily from the loss of manufacturing and factory jobs, rather than from other structural forces like e-commerce growth, demographic shifts, or automation.
- A relatively small influx of jobs (a few thousand) is sufficient to meaningfully reverse a town's economic trajectory, rather than merely providing temporary relief.
- Federal industrial policy can effectively influence where private companies choose to locate operations.
- The current business vitality (packed restaurants, expanding shops) reflects suppressed demand rather than a shrinking population adapting to fewer amenities.