The Trump administration launched the Foundry School on Thursday in an effort to rebuild the nation’s manufacturing. The school is connected to Pax Silica, the State Department’s “multilateral initiative to secure trusted global supply chains for the technologies that will define the next century,” the Department said.
Due to the Trump administration’s reindustrialization goals, the nation will need about 3.8 million skilled workers by 2033 to specialize in semiconductors, defense, energy, and other sectors.
Speaking at the school’s launch, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that the United States is “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.”
“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 level,” he said.
According to Rubio, one of the nation’s “crown jewels” behind innovation has been the higher education system. “It has produced extraordinary research; it has produced extraordinary breakthroughs. I think the sad part about it is the number of things we have innovated or created, but then they’re made somewhere else,” he noted. “And so, I think in the 21st century, this partnership with higher education is important, and it’s important for two reasons.”
Rubio declared that the Foundry School is an opportunity to share with students: “If you come here and you go to school and you follow this curriculum, you will leave here not just with a paper credential but with the skills that make you immediately employable in a high-paying job, in a good-paying job with long-term stability.”
Vice President JD Vance also provided remarks during the event, celebrating that the Trump administration is “telling America’s next generation of entrepreneurs and engineers and just brilliant kids that there is a future.” He added, “We believe in making things again. And we’re going to give you the tools and the education and the networking in order to do it.”
