But, how does changing some number on a "trade deficit" spreadsheet materially affect Apple or Americans? Apple pays slightly more taxes to the government than it did before. Big deal. There is no incentive to demolish an automated factory in China and re-build it in Nebraska.
Apparently the US can sustain a trade deficit with the rest of the world, but certainly this ability to sustain one is not unlimited, so lowering the trade deficit tends to help Americans by making it more likely that the US economy can continue to import things (including some things are are available only outside the US, e.g., fruits that only grow in tropical climate).
If the trade deficit becomes or continues to be unsustainably large, that would devalue the dollar so that Joe's dollar buy less imports than it does now.
There are hints of a strange energy to your questions, which does not bother me, but I am curious whether you feel hostile to me, e.g., because you inferred from my answers that I probably support a political faction that you regard as the enemy.
Not really, you seem to think that the location of an automated factory which employs basically nobody makes a material difference to anyone, and I'm trying to work out what that is
Assuming no change in costs, how does moving its factories from China to Nebraska change anything, for apple, for the US government or the US citizen?