No, it’s not wages that would increase prices huge amounts. They’d increase the price of goods slightly (depending on the good) but for the most part the biggest cost factor that increases when you decide to make something in the US is regulations.

Ya know, rules that prevent companies from dumping their toxic waste wherever TF they want. It’s not just the regulations that apply to a specific company’s business but all the regulations in their supply chain.

Consider a PCB manufacturer: They need epoxies, fiberglass, copper, gold, tin, and silver to make PCBs along with a shitton of associated chemicals. All of those things ultimately come from heavily regulated industries (because we don’t want smelter waste full of things like lead, mercury, cobalt, and worse things winding up in our food and water). All that regulation costs money to deal with. Not just in actually complying with the regulations but also hiring people knowledgeable enough to make sure they’re complying (and doing so in the least expensive way possible).

In countries like China regulations are basically non-existent because even if they have them officials can easily and cheaply be bribed to get around them (e.g. poisoned baby formula). Furthermore, the people are vastly more ignorant of health and pollution than your average idiot in the US. If some dude sees a company dumping tires on the side of the road they’re likely to call the cops because that’s obviously illegal. I’m China that doesn’t happen because the people will be unlikely to understand the (environmental/downstream) consequences of that or will suspect the cops (and local officials) are in on it and reporting the illegal dumping could get them disappeared.

The most toxic industries are all overseas and we really do rely on them to keep supply chains going. Bringing them back onshore would drastically increase the cost of a shitton of goods just because there’s no cheap way to dispose of byproducts here and there’s way more requirements around handling such things.