In the years since the 2008 financial crisis, this southern U.S. port city has attracted a new Airbus factory, seen its steel industry retool, and gained thousands of jobs building the Navy’s new combat vessel.

Some 300 miles north in Huntsville, new businesses sprout in farm fields drawn by readily available land, low taxes, flexible labor rules and improving infrastructure.

As President Trump faces pressure to deliver on his promise to revive manufacturing in the northern “rust belt” states that put him in the White House, his biggest challenge may not be Mexico or China, but the southern U.S. states that form the other pillar of his political base.

States like Alabama have built a presence in the global supply chain in direct competition with the country’s Midwestern industrial heartland, and even if Trump coaxes jobs back to the United States they may well head south rather than north.

Whether