Will Kanye West be able to bring Yeezy production back in America? Kanye says he wants to. But maybe it's not a realistic objective.

In his conversation with Beats Radio 1 host Zane Lowe on the eve of the release of "Jesus is King," Kanye West made some of the most conservative and at the same time progressive statements ever made by a rapper. Kanye had first talked about "regaining food independence" and then announced that he wanted to bring the production of his Yeezy back to the USA, hiring in the factories African-American ex-convicts, the category of people who historically struggle more to re-enter the job world after detention.

As is often the case, Kanye has added a huge amount of information, some of which are relevant but overshadowed by the huge amount of data to be processed. He had already spoken about "the need to work for the recovery of our planet and to have the humility to understand that we cannot destroy the Earth - we can destroy resources and then destroy ourselves". In this sense, the announcement of the new Yeezy Foam Runner cannot be considered a surprise. It took place during the last Fast Company's Innovation Festival: a silhouette made from a algae-based foam and not toxic fossil fuels, immediately labelled by the Twitter and Instagram audience as the "Yeezy Crocs". Kanye went on to reiterate that "our goal over the next two years is to bring the industry back to America: South America and North America," and added that he had already moved Yeezy's HQ to his ranch in Cody, Wyoming.

The sneaker-game, on the other hand, is now a complex game of political balance. In November 2016, New Balance faced criticism after expressly supporting Trump's decision to withdraw from the TPP: «The Obama admin turned a deaf ear to us and frankly with Pres-Elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction », had told the Wall Street Journal, so much so that the rapper and new Balance Action enthusiast Bronson said: «I'll be donating a ridiculous amount of NBs and Yeezys to struggling immigrants in NYC ». Even on American alt-right and far-right sites, the definition of New Balances as "real sneakers of white Americans" began to circulate. Under Armour - which in 2017 launched its first line of apparel produced entirely in downtown Baltimore - has also found itself dealing with politics several times, first calling, through its CEO Kevin Plank, the US President "pro-business" and "a real resource for the country," and then distanced themselves from Trump's senseless attack on the city of Baltimore, the real heart of USA manufacturing, just that part of America where everyone seems to want to bring back their industries, to take them away from the sworn enemy of the economy America, but where no one has the strength to return. Not even Kanye West or Donald Trump.