U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will be leading a high-tech trade mission to India next February and has invited U.S. companies to come along. 

But how will this help bolster American manufacturing and create U.S. jobs?  We're not sure.

And as discussion of trade and foreign manufacturing becomes increasingly relevant, especially given the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission's report to Congress, Department of Commerce Chief Economist Mark Doms has offered some words on recent manufacturing numbers in the United States:

Manufacturing production has been increasing in the past couple of months, but not at the pace that we saw earlier in the year.  Similarly, we saw increases in manufacturing employment during the first 5 months of the year but manufacturing employment has been stable since then.  Although growth hasn't been stellar (2.7 percent annual rate over the last three months compared to the previous three months), we expect the pace of production to pick up in Q4 and for the pace of production to outstrip that of GDP growth in 2011.

We'll continue to deliver the numbers as we keep a close eye on how American manufacturing will be changing in the coming months.