The Myth of Instant Reshoring: Why Tariffs Alone Won’t Rebuild American Manufacturing A philosophical reflection on leadership, resilience, and the human condition.
By D. L. Dantes | November 9th, 2025

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Home Tailwinds And Reshoring: Why Small Caps Might Win The Subsequent Wave

The Myth of Instant Reshoring: Why Tariffs Alone Won’t Rebuild American Manufacturing

Tariffs can’t buy back industry overnight. Explore why real reshoring takes time, skill, and honesty—and why slogans alone won’t save American manufacturing. #Leadership #Economics

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Producción más cerca más segura

Reubicar producción reduce vulnerabilidades. Las empresas apuestan a estructuras propias, menos expuestas a interrupciones.
Moving production closer reduces vulnerabilities. Companies are investing in less exposed supply structures.

Design Changes For Reshoring Manufacturing

Giving the product’s designs to a new US contract manufacturer (CM) is not the only step in reshoring a product. Here is a List of possible design issues to consider.

For more information, read our blog: Design Changes For Reshoring Manufacturing

Although it is true that the labor rate in China is far lower than in the USA, their productivity (the value of the work they do per hour) more than compensates for their lower wage. Productivity is a fancy way of saying how much work can be done in an hour. Price is what you pay, and value is what you receive.

For more information, visit: Planning for Reshoring Manufacturing

4 Tips for Reshoring Manufacturing

For more information, visit: Planning for Reshoring Manufacturing

This blog talks about manufacturers opting for Nearshoring and Reshoring, and how an HRO can help them streamline operations.

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Becoming a Lean Enterprise is Critical to Rebuilding American Manufacturing

Becoming a Lean Enterprise is Critical to Rebuilding American Manufacturing

When I wrote the chapter on what manufacturers can do to save themselves for my first book, Can American Manufacturing be Saved? Why we should and how we can, published in 2009, one of my top recommendations was to begin the Lean journey to become a Lean manufacturer.

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It’s Time To Rethink About Reshoring Your Business - Again!

It’s Time To Rethink About Reshoring Your Business – Again!

Does your small business need to sell internationally to be successful? Could you find suppliers on home turf? Is the current economic climate making it harder to sell overseas or pushing your outgoing costs up to unacceptable levels? Is it time to ditch overseas business entirely and focus on working within your own country? Yes, it’s time to think about reshoring your business – again.

Think…

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IS IT TIME FOR “RESHORING”?

We did NOT see this coming! Who on this Earth could have seen a global pandemic AND a three-year trade war with China with NO end in sight?  I don’t think Nostradamus could have foretold this event.  We have been told we are possibly eighteen (18) months away from a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus AND there is no real end in sight for any solution to the trade problems we have with China.  Of…

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There is a Dutch translation of this article on https://earaernl.tumblr.com/post/624963192851972096/zullen-we-een-betere-maatschappij-hebben-door-geen

The smear campaign that President Trump and his acolytes have unleashed against China has repercussions, there is no doubt. What started as a trade war because of an unequal trade balance in China’s favor has long since passed that stage.

It is clear indeed that Trump’s constituency consists of white blue collars, who have lost their industrial jobs to the Far East - and primarily China, the factory of the world - and which have had to reorient themselves to services that have not been so movable. However, those services pay less, are often not very interesting, and are now the first source of layoffs due to the Covid19 epidemic. In America, this has been a bloodbath with 40 million unemployed.

Thus the Trump administration has changed its strategy and has now accused China for being a totalitarian state concentrating its foreign activities on espionage, intellectual property theft, massive collection of citizens’ data to monitor and dominate them, buy-up of tactical companies to weaken the West etc. A daring strategy because the post-war politics of the US, supported by the other Anglo-Saxon countries UK, Canada and Australia, has also consisted of mapping secretely the actions of other countries and their ministers in real time, obstructing the take-over of American multinationals by third parties at all costs, eliminating enemies with drones remotely, etc. After all, it is not without reason that the US pays seventeen different secret service agencies with public money.

Ambassadors in Western countries have been campaigning since the beginning of last year to show that every Chinese company that gains a foothold in the West by selling installations there, by purchasing local companies, means a Trojan horse. Their plea is not neutral. Ronald Gidwitz, US ambassador to Belgium, emphasized in a recent interview that Belgium is a special place “because you have NATO here, Shape (NATO’s central command center, ed.), the EU and more diplomats than any other where in the world. Valuable research is being done, important companies are located here. ”[1] It would not be the first time that the Americans threaten to leave NATO and SHAPE from Belgium if they don’t dance to their tune.

Is the whole American story about China a hoax, one of those sickening Trump attacks he’s patented on? Many Western managers who live and work in China and Western academic experts on China warn against white and black visions and conspiracy theories. Those who live there and are married to a Chinese woman often blow the trumpet of a disciplined Chinese society, warning that the West’s dominance is coming to an end and that the future is in the Far East.

Nevertheless, we notice a tendency in the West to become more cautious about the Chinese expansion. More than a year ago, the French and German governments called for measures to better protect European companies from foreign competitors. They want to prevent European technology from falling into the hands of mainly Chinese companies. The corona crisis has exacerbated the risk of companies from outside the EU going “bargain hunting” and buying into European companies that are financially weakened. It is highly suspicious that Chinese companies, supported by their government, will feel tempted to do so.[2]

What are China’s assets and what is blamed on the country and its inhabitants?

The pro-China arguments are shared by tourists, business travelers and some politicians. Due to its central structure with strategic 5-year plans (we are now on the 14th plan![3]), the country has a predefined course that no people, no NGOs, or organization can block. It can therefore switch quickly: this has been proven in the approach to the covid19 virus. Since the country and its inhabitants have never known any form of free speech, society takes precedence over the individual and everyone is forced to accept this rule. Western observers then call this “social discipline”. These arguments are also used by Western companies to justify their production in China: stability, well organized, working population, there are almost no unions and therefore no work stoppages or wage bargaining. Chairman Gimmi Baldinini of the Italian sports shoe manufacturer of the same name, who has all his shoes made near Shenzhen, recently said in an interview to Bloomberg: “Gone from China? I cannot do that. Chinese workers are more convenient and production costs are still 75 percent lower than here. ”[4] Moreover, a number of Western companies cannot do without China as a unique supplier of rare earth metals. Rare earth metals are used to manufacture many things from electric or hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, consumer electronics to other clean energy technologies.

The critics are not all on the same wavelength and therefore hammer at different points. The buying public in the West is not happy with the lack of quality of most Chinese cheap products (Chinese crap!), which are offered in department stores. The working population is becoming increasingly vigilant when Chinese investors come to Europe because they fear they will take away know-how leading to job losses. The reason President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Morrison continue to have a massive number of followers is catalyzed in that complaint: the serious jobs have disappeared, remain the “bullshit jobs”. NGOs and political organizations in the West focus on the lack of transparency of the Chinese government, its totalitarian approach to minorities and the fact that many Chinese people who study and work in the West often “spy” for the Chinese Communist Party and are therefore untrustworthy partners. Companies that do business there often state that they can only have simple products made in China. If things get a bit more complicated, they have to move to South Korea. They are also wary of the behavior of Chinese partners: they copy Western products for their own account without blushing; they deliver inferior products after one or two correct loads; their legal system retains their lawsuits filed by Western companies: the latter are 99.9% losing parties. A serious argument has now been added with the COVID19 crisis in which the supply of parts or basic products from China suddenly disappeared, as a result of which Western companies could no longer produce. Governments are especially wary of Chinese state-owned companies that are financially supported by the Chinese Communist Party and unabashedly buy into strategic Western companies. They have also faced phenomena of hostile hacking by Chinese companies affiliated with the Chinese government seeking strategic data, advances in Western research or ways to compromise high-ranking individuals.

What consequences has had COVID 19 and that were enhanced by the Trump administration’s US politics?

For ten years, a tendency for reindustrialization, also known as reshoring, has started in the US and Europe. After a period of offshoring, in which companies exported their production to cheap countries, many OECD countries are talking about reshoring. This principle has been followed rather hesitantly so far. And some initiatives have even failed, such as the new Adidas shoe factory in Berlin.[5] The COVID-19 economic crisis of early 2020, also known as the “Great Lockdown Crisis”, has accelerated the concept and the strategic decisions to take in order to achieve it . When China locked in early January 2020, many products in the world ran out of basic commodities. After all, China had become the world’s factory, which produced and shipped all basic products to all over the world. And this was true not only for mechanical products, but also for chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Very large economic players suddenly realized that the concentration of production in one country poses an existential risk. When production in this country stopped, the global economy suffered from the consequences.

Just before the new coronavirus broke out around the world, Bank of America’s exchange house came up with a large study[6] examining the theme of reshoring. The survey involved 3,000 of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. The survey showed that as many as 80% of companies have plans to relocate their production locations and supply lines. In the US, 50% of companies are said to have plans to rebuild production to America. According to Bank of America, an essential part of this is that there exist increasingly better and cheaper robots that make production in the West affordable again. Because of the COVID-19 crisis, President Trump’s government has stated that it is willing to reward American companies that take their production out of China, even if they do not return their production to the US itself, but to other ‘friendly countries’[7].

Even before coronavirus, the European Commission was aware of the risk of Europe becoming too dependent on supply chains outside Europe, especially for the industries of the future. She published a report in June 2019 entitled 'A vision for European industry up to 2030’[8]. In it, it selected six value chains that it believed the EU should play an important role in. These were the green and self-driving car, hydrogen technology, smart health technology, the internet of things, cyber security and low security. CO2 industry.

In addition, the European Commission is working on a plan to return the production of raw materials for medicines to Europe. Almost all European antibiotics come from the Far East. Important raw materials for blood pressure reducers, creams for skin conditions and medicines for stomach complaints also come mainly from Chinese factories. [9] EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides recently told the Financial Times [10]that Brussels would use its pharmaceutical strategy to address the supply chain challenges that have emerged from the crisis, in particular the union’s reliance on China and India for import of critical intensive care including narcotic pain killers, muscle relaxants and some older anesthetics.

Japan has only recently started moving its production lines to China. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, an off-shoring movement had arisen because the supply chain in Japan was at high risk of disruption through natural disasters. Following the “Great Lockdown” crisis of spring 2020, the Japanese government has begun to take steps to reverse the supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic by encouraging companies to return to production in Japan.[11] The Abe government released an initial list of Japanese companies that are eligible for subsidies because they are removing their production from China. No fewer than 87 companies have decided to leave China for a fee. 37 of them - including a rubber glove producer and a rare earth factory - move their production line to low-cost neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia. The other 50 companies will build factories in their own country. Together they receive 70 billion yen (563 million euros) in tax money for this.[12]

The Chinese policy developed by President Xi Jinping in recent years is based on a very nationalistic ideology that aims to restore China’s world domination from a few centuries ago. This pursuit of economic and military dominance provokes resistance in the West, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, which have seen their influence in the world diminish. However, Chinese nationalism has other consequences. With the “road and belt” program, China has emerged as the champion of the developing world. However, Xi’s nationalism has also meant that the Chinese who are committed to it also feel far above the other peoples, resulting in a racist reflex. Which in turn increases resistance in the African countries that should be China’s natural ally. For example, President Kagame of Rwanda, President of the African Union, recently expelled 18 Chinese people for violating the rights of Rwandan citizens.[13]

We will not arrive at a better understanding with threats

The muscle flexing that we experience on both sides of the Pacific does not solve anything. In a recent interview with De Standaard, Wentao Zhang, General manager Huawei Belgium, spoke threateningly: if Belgium follows the European trend and excludes Huawei from the new 5G networks, prices for the Belgian consumer will increase drastically. “It would be very stupid to destroy the foundations of the technology sector just after the corona crisis. The emphasis should now be on how we use new technology to rebuild the economy after the corona crisis. ”[14] This reaction had to do with the pressure President Trump is putting on European countries to exclude Chinese companies such as ZTE and Huawei from participating in the newly-created 5G networks because they could be considered as companies that could be the subject of interference by a non-EU country. This was, of course, a direct response to the aforementioned interview with the American Ambassador to Belgium, who said: “We think it is important that you use suppliers that you can trust. We believe you should be concerned with every Chinese company. A 2017 Chinese law requires citizens and companies to provide information to intelligence agencies when they request it. That is not the case with western companies. ”[15]

Europe is trying to navigate a third path, that of freedom of expression and legal security. Europe is of course also aware that under Xi, China is hyper-controlling its population and trying to steal as many Western secrets as possible. And that China, despite being a member of the WTO, is flouting the rules of the free market. And that China, which is a member of the WHO, tries to bend this organization to its own advantage so that it cannot be held responsible for all epidemic outbreaks that go from China to the rest of the world. And Europe also sees China severely sanctioning any “interference in domestic affairs”, as was recently the case with the UK’s responses. and Australia on the new introduction of the new security law in Hong Kong.[16]

But Europe also sees China’s enormous potential as a sales market. Volkswagen already sells 40 percent of its cars to the fast-growing Chinese middle class. Instead of moving away, the German car manufacturer decided to buy in Chinese battery manufacturer Goxuan High-Tech in May.[17]

However, Europe has now also noticed that the policy of “putting all eggs in one basket” as it has happened in the past can seriously harm the European economy in the event of a pandemic. And Europe is also aware that the COVID19 pandemic will not be the last to come from China to the rest of the world. European companies therefore opt for a “China + 1” strategy: besides their factory in China, they invest in a second factory in an Asian country nearby, with which the US does not argue. And they are accelerating their automation and robotization[18] plans to keep their products sellable.

What they should also opt for is educating the consumer, so that these learn to buy products not only on the basis of price, but also on the basis of quality and sustainability. That is not an assignment from the business community, it is an assignment for the authorities. And then it will automatically end up with products that are produced closer to Europe, with more love for the profession. Striving for zero-emission shipping should be given a higher priority so that production chains for Europe can also be located around the Mediterranean. It is expected that there will be taxes on CO2 emissions from shipping in the near future. From 2020, the use of low sulfur diesel is mandatory.[19]

Because of the Great Lockdown, many communities have retreated to themselves and have discovered small scale: the local shop instead of the department store, the local farmer instead of the supermarket. The deconfinement briefly nullified that behavior. But the second wave of corona is already coming and warns everyone the threat is not gone yet. The reflex of the citizens of giving support to their own SMEs by buying there, of taking a holiday in their own country, of purchasing their own local agricultural and horticultural products, even if these are somewhat more expensive, is hammered on it by necessity. The second wave, and perhaps the third wave of the pandemic, will bring along a lasting change in behavior, which will be based on localization and on appreciation of one’s ability.

Louis Delcart, board member European Academy of the Regions, www.ear-aer.eu

[1] Karsten Lemmens, ‘Elk Chinees bedrijf is reden tot bezorgdheid’, INTERVIEW  Ronald Gidwitz, ambassadeur van de VS in België (“Every Chinese company is cause for concern,” INTERVIEW Ronald Gidwitz, US Ambassador to Belgium), in De Standaard, 07-03-2020,  https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200306_04879432

[2] Bart Beirlant, ‘We moeten ophouden naïef te zijn over China’ (“We must stop being naive about China”), in De Standaard, 17 juni 2020, https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200616_04992933

[3] Vijfjarenplannen van China - Five-year plans of China, https://nl.qwe.wiki/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China , retrieved 28/07/2020

[4] Nico Tanghe, Weg uit China? Let op voor afkickverschijnselen (Leaving China? Watch out for withdrawal symptoms), in De Standaard, 23-07-2020, https://www.standaard.be/krant/publicatie/20200723/ds/dn/alg/optimized

[5] Hanna Ziady, Adidas is closing hi-tech sneaker factories in Germany and the US, in CNN Business, November 12, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/12/business/adidas-speedfactory-plants-closing/index.html, retrieved 5-5-2020

[6] Candace Browning and Ethan Harris, Tectonic Shifts in Global Supply Chains, in BofA Global Research, 04-02-2020, https://www.bofaml.com/content/dam/boamlimages/documents/articles/ID20_0147/Tectonic_Shifts_in_Global_Supply_Chains.pdf, retrieved 6-05-2020

[7] Nico Tanghe, Weg uit China? Let op voor afkickverschijnselen (Leaving China? Watch out for withdrawal symptoms), De Standaard  - 23/07/2020 - https://www.standaard.be/krant/publicatie/20200723/ds/dn/alg/optimized , retrieved 5-05-2020

[8] Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (European Commission): A vision for the European industry until 2030, Final report of the Industry 2030 high level industrial roundtable, EU publications, 2019-08-12, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/339d0a1b-bcab-11e9-9d01-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-106474442, retrieved 3-04-2020

[9] Nico Tanghe, Haal uw productie weg uit China en krijg een cadeautje van Trump (Take your production out of China and get a gift from Trump), in De Standaard Avond - 4 mei 2020 - https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200504_04944244? – retrieved on 5-05-2020

[10] Jim Brunsden and Michael Peel, Covid-19 exposes EU’s reliance on drug imports, in Financial Times, April 20 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/c30eb13a-f49e-4d42-b2a8-1c6f70bb4d55, retrieved on 5/05/2020

[11] HISAO KODACHI, Japan to help bring home factories that left after 2011 disaster, Nikkei Asian Review, March 25, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-to-help-bring-home-factories-that-left-after-2011-disaster, retrieved on 5-05-2020

[12] Nico Tanghe, Weg uit China? Let op voor afkickverschijnselen (Leaving China? Watch out for withdrawal symptoms),in: De Standaard  - 23/07/2020 - https://www.standaard.be/krant/publicatie/20200723/ds/dn/alg/optimized

[13] Mua Karl, Kagame Sends 18 Chinese Back To China As He Takes No Nonsense in The Voice, 1-06-2020, https://www.thevoicenews.net/2020/06/01/kagame-sends-18-chinese-back-to-china-as-he-takes-no-nonsense/ retrieved 28/07/2020

[14] Karsten Lemmens, ‘Als Huawei niet meer welkom is in België, zal de burger dat betalen’, in De Standaard; 17-07-2020 , https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200716_96290145  retrieved on 18-07-2020

[15] Karsten Lemmens, ‘Elk Chinees bedrijf is reden tot bezorgdheid’(“Every Chinese company is cause for concern,” INTERVIEW Ronald Gidwitz, US Ambassador to Belgium), De Standaard, 07-03-2020, https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200306_04879432 retrieved 08-03-2020

[16] Sara Van Poucke, China reageert gepikeerd op (Britse) kritiek op veiligheidswet: “Stop met grove inmenging in Hongkong”, in VRTNews 06-07-2020, retrieved 28/07/2020 https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2020/07/06/china-reageert-gepikeerd-op-westerse-kritiek-op-veiligheidswet-h/ Retrieved on 28-07-2020

[17] Nico Tanghe, Weg uit China? Let op voor afkickverschijnselen (Leaving China? Watch out for withdrawal symptoms), De Standaard  - 23/07/2020 - https://www.standaard.be/krant/publicatie/20200723/ds/dn/alg/optimized retrieved 24-07-2020

[18] Nico Tanghe, Weg uit China? Let op voor afkickverschijnselen (Leaving China? Watch out for withdrawal symptoms), De Standaard  - 23/07/2020 - https://www.standaard.be/krant/publicatie/20200723/ds/dn/alg/optimized retrieved 24-07-2020

[19] Investeren in groene scheepvaart (Investing in green shipping), in ING News, 11-4-2018, https://www.ing.be/nl/retail/my-news/sustainability/sustainable-shipping

New U.S. government development agency could loan billions for reshoring, official says

U.S. government financing for reshoring projects to return critical supply chains to the United States as part of coronavirus response efforts could reach tens of billions of dollars and clients may include a projected $12 billion Taiwanese semiconductor plant in Arizona.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corp is talking to companies about reshoring the manufacturing of personal…

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Picture: Brussels, Villa Empain

Reshoring as the solution to production breakdowns ?

When the dust from the corona crisis has settled, many companies will wonder whether it is a good idea to get so many parts and goods from China and Asia. A long hitch in China causes work stoppages or empty shelves 7,600 km away in Europe. We can’t even make anything as crucial and simple as a mouth mask here.

And there is not only the corona virus. The outbreak comes at a time when Europe, with Germany leading the way, has not yet recovered from the effects of the China-US trade war. In addition, China’s Huawei and its dominance in 5G technology reveal that Europe has become highly dependent on foreign technology and products. The question therefore arises whether Europe should not produce much more itself again.

The idea that Europe needs to produce more itself again is not new and even has a name: “reshoring”, the mirror image of offshoring. Offshoring is the movement that characterized Europe and the US in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the manufacturing industry drifted en masse to low-wage countries, in particular to China. Low labor costs and cheap container connections were the main motive for no longer making all kinds of products, from mouth masks to computers.

Shortly after the financial crisis, the tide started to turn cautiously and one could see here and there companies doing the other way around: bringing back production from China to the West. In the US in particular, wages had fallen due to the crisis, reducing the wage differential with China. In addition, due to the success of shale gas, the US experienced low energy prices, which turned the costs for a number of companies again westward. Companies that produced in China often found problems with the quality of the products, the long delivery time or the problem that a Chinese business partner simply copied the product under a different name.

Reshoring also entered Europe a few years ago. For example, in 2012 Philips removed part of the production of shavers from China and transferred it to its location in Drachten, Friesland. There are also examples in Belgium, such as ED&A from Kalmthout, that brought the production of electronic printed circuit boards back to the Kempen in North-Belgium in 2012 to be closer to the customer and to keep the quality better under control. ED&A’s CEO Gert D'Handschotter says he is still very satisfied with that decision. “I notice a lot of admiration from colleagues and customers for the step we have taken. In this crisis, we now also have the advantage that we can give a perfect update of the production to the customers, so that they are not dependent on a factory somewhere in Turkey or China. But no matter how beautiful your story is, you should be able to offer competitive rates in the first place. ”

In the Flemish (North-Belgium) industry, there are also examples of companies that consciously keep and strengthen parts of the production here, such as beamer-producer Barco and loom manufacturer Van de Wiele. Proximity to the R&D department, quality control or protection of intellectual property are often the motivations. Most importantly, robotization and other automation processes once again make it possible to produce profitably here.

Last year the reshoring story got a setback, when the leading project in Europe closed its doors. A few years earlier, sports clothing manufacturer Adidas had opened a shoe factory in Bavaria with big drums’ sound that would again manufacture running shoes in Europe via 3D printing and robots. But the factory never reached the desired results, causing production to disappear back to Asia.

Sustainability

Coincidence or not, but just before the new coronavirus broke out all over the world, Bank of America’s exchange house came up with a large study that explored the theme of reshoring. The survey involved 3,000 of the largest publicly traded companies in the world. That survey found that as many as 80% of companies have plans to relocate their production sites and supply lines. In the US, 50% of companies are said to have plans to rebuild production to America. The trade war in which companies try to escape tariffs, in addition to safety and sustainability, is mentioned as motive. The latter concerns both the ecological footprint of long supply lines and the avoidance of involvement in countries with poor labor practices and thereby suffering reputational damage. According to Bank of America, an essential component in that reshoring is increasingly better and cheaper robots that make production in the West affordable again.

For Robert Boute, professor of Supply Chain Management at Vlerick and KU Leuven (Belgium), the corona crisis can be a turning point and, as Bank of America indicates, logistics chains will be redesigned. “Companies are now being awakened to see how vulnerable their supply chain is. You can get some sort of multiplier effect that brings together the corona crisis, the trade war and the excessive technology dependence on Asia and the US. This will lead to companies wanting to become less dependent on a limited number of suppliers. "He warns that closer production is not the saviour of humanity. "Many companies will now find that they may work with suppliers in Europe, but also that a few steps further in the production process there still are parts from China, which will cause them problems.”

Boute believes most in the model of “double sourcing”, in which companies get their basic demand for parts from cheaper Asia, while looking for suppliers closer to being able to react quickly. But he does not believe that we will now be mass-producing in Europe once again. “China is also automating on a large scale, helping to maintain a significant lead in certain technologies. And I don’t see labor-intensive products returning. ”

Patrick Van den Bossche, expert at Belgian technology companies’ federation Agoria, also believes that the corona crisis can lead to a wake-up call. “Companies will wonder if the just-in-time model, which keeps stocks as limited as possible, is still the right model.” But he emphasises on the difficulty of replacing China or Asia as a supplier. “Some value chains, especially in electronics, have completely disappeared from Europe. You cannot just switch suppliers. For example, if your supplier produces chemical products, he must meet many standards and have certificates. Many companies, especially SMEs, are forced to purchase in China because they do not find any here. They don’t do that for their pleasure. ”

Value chains in Europe

Even before the coronavirus came along, the European Commission was aware of the risk that Europe would become too dependent on supply chains outside Europe, especially for the industries of the future. She published a report in June 2019 entitled ‘A vision for European  industry until 2030’.[1] In it, she selected six value chains that she felt the EU should play an important role in. These were the green and self-driving car, hydrogen technology, smart health technology, the Internet of Things, cyber security and low-CO2 industry.

The battery industry, which is crucial for the transition to electric cars, is perhaps the most striking example of Europe hoping to establish that value chain on European soil. “Certain parts of that chain are already in Europe, but links are still missing,” says Patrick Van den Bossche from Agoria. He does believe that targeted policies should be able to reduce dependence on Asia. For example, there are already some initiatives to set up battery factories in Europe.

Jan Van Hove, besides chief economist at KBC Bank (Belgium) also professor of International Economics at KU Leuven (Belgium), is anxious. He fears that the discussion about dependence on Asia will open the door to all kinds of state aid or market shielding. “The French will be at the forefront of protecting sectors that are already highly protected through even more subsidies or monopolies. Just think of the discussion about blocking the merger between Alstom and the Siemens train division. ”

According to Van Hove, who is an advocate of globalization, you can also solve the economic risks exposed by the coronavirus in a simpler way. “You can also hold larger stocks and possibly impose obligations on the size of that stock for certain critical products. You already have that for oil, where countries have to keep strategic stocks. You could expand that kind of strategic stock to other products, instead of being forced to bring back all kinds of production chains. ”

Van Hove also notes that globalization has clearly been declining for several years now and that we are evaluating to economic blocks of countries such as Europe and North America. According to Van Hove, things have gone unnoticed here, but the main driver behind this de-globalization is China itself. “China clearly wants to become less dependent on the rest of the world. The credit crisis in 2008 opened their eyes. They were suddenly faced with a serious economic slowdown caused by the US housing market, which they had little to do with. China therefore has the priority to make as much as possible itself and not to be dependent on foreign production chains. That is much more important to them than that they dominate the whole world with their products. ”

Author: Stijn Decock - de Standaard - Saturday, March 7, 2020 - our translation to English

[1]   Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (European Commission): A vision for the European industry until 2030, Final report of the Industry 2030 high level industrial roundtable, EU publications, 2019-08-12, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/339d0a1b-bcab-11e9-9d01-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-106474442 retrieved 3-04-2020

The U.S. Could Bring Back Manufacturing Jobs. Read how via @reshorenow | #reshore #mfg #tco #jobs #insource

Many companies that offshored manufacturing jobs didn’t really do the math. (more…)

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Stanley Black & Decker To Open U.S. Plant | #reshoring #mfg #jobs

One of the nation’s best-known toolmakers, Stanley Black & Decker, said Thursday that it will move more manufacturing back to the U.S. from overseas, including construction of a new $35 million factory after acquiring the Craftsman brand from ailing retailer Sears Holdings. (more…)

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Regramming myself: #Repost @analogue_allie with @repostapp
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🎉 Yay! After 2 moves, I finally got my @goodclothingcompany kickstarter premium. Thank you very much GCC and USPS. She look good. #local #mass #newengland #factory #garment #apparel #manufacturing #dreamjob #fashion #reshoring

#Reshoring and the #apparel industry | @ReshoreNow @HarryMoser #Textiles

Reshoring – For decades we have been shedding apparel-manufacturing jobs in addition to the entire ecosystem that goes along with them. However, the offshore wages that were once a fraction of U.S. labor costs are escalating. Shipping costs, coupled with long lead times, quality problems, and the intangible costs and risks of being far from customers are making offshore manufacturing and sourcing…

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