In honor of America’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this column reviews the current state of the reshoring trend and recommends a forward-looking approach to secure U.S. manufacturing leadership for years to come. My aim is to inspire successful reshoring.
In 2010, the year I founded the Reshoring Initiative, companies announced about 11,000 reshoring and foreign direct investment (FDI) manufacturing jobs. A global localization trend and the country’s need to become more self-sufficient drove reshoring by U.S. companies and FDI by foreign companies to a peak of 360,000-plus jobs in 2022.
In 2025, U.S. reshoring job announcements were surprisingly strong despite the tariff uncertainty. In 2026, those numbers could climb substantially if tariff policies become more measured, stable and long term. Companies need stability for multi-year planning for building new facilities and establishing supply chains.
Today, the annual rate is about 240,000 jobs per year, a compound annual growth rate of about 25 percent since 2010. The updated 2025 Reshoring Initiative Report Preview reveals approximately 245,000 announced jobs, only a slight deceleration from a strong 2024, confirming the core strength of the trend (see Figure 1).
Accelerating reshoring
The driving force of offshoring has been and continues to be that U.S. manufacturing costs are higher than in almost all competitor countries. Competing industrial economies like China undervalue their currencies, which makes its exports less expensive globally, while an overvalued dollar makes U.S. products more expensive and less competitive.
President Trump’s tariffs and President Biden’s grants are tools to deal with U.S. manufacturing costs being 10 to 20 percent higher than most other developed countries and 50 to 100 percent higher than emerging-market countries.
A firm, long-term tariff is much better than no action at all to address America’s cost-competitiveness problem. But a targeted revaluation of the U.S. dollar (e.g., by 20 percent) is preferred because it attacks the root cause of the problem by reducing imports and increasing exports. Tariff uncertainty does the opposite. A lower U.S. dollar also improves international competitiveness on services for the United States.
A policy that encourages a lower U.S. dollar offers a more effective, efficient and sustainable strategy to reshoring, resulting in a stronger U.S. manufacturing sector. The February 2026 Supreme Court ruling on tariffs should be taken as an opportunity to pursue a better alternative. The best solution is to have the U.S. dollar adjust as needed to eliminate the $1.2 trillion trade deficit.
I suggest the Market Access Charge (MAC) financial mechanism to restore a competitive dollar. The MAC, a small variable tax on all foreign capital inflows into U.S. financial markets, is designed to address the U.S. trade deficit and currency valuation issues.
The tax, perhaps 0.5 percent one time on each transaction, is engineered to correct trade imbalances and accomplish four goals:
- increase exports
- reduce imports
- encourage FDI in U.S. factories instead of U.S. financial assets
- generate revenue for infrastructure and workforce training
Reshoring musts
Companies should recruit, train and upskill their workforce. The United States must invest more heavily in apprenticeship training. By combining on-the-job training with classroom instruction, apprenticeships provide young people with pathways to learn vocational skills that are especially important for a lucrative career in high-tech manufacturing.
In addition, companies should automate where possible. New technologies and automation make U.S. manufacturing more cost competitive, enabling more reshoring. China has aggressively automated, driven by a rapidly expanding manufacturing sector. The United States has neglected automation because manufacturing has been flat or in decline. Reshoring will pay for automation, and automation will make more reshoring feasible.
Finally, companies should use Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when selling against imports or convincing customers to reshore. The Reshoring Initiative’s TCO Estimator is a free online tool that helps companies account for all relevant factors to compare the true total cost of domestic and offshore sourcing and siting.
Localizing production and sourcing not only reduces geopolitical risk, but it also makes supply chains more resilient and sustainable, encourages investment in infrastructure and workforce development, and strengthens the U.S. economy.
The Reshoring Initiative believes a more competitive dollar, targeted industrial policies and skilled workforce development is the comprehensive solution to support and expand America’s domestic manufacturing industry well into the future.
Click here to access the full list of reshoring resources offered by the Reshoring Initiative. For help, contact me at 847-867-1144 or harry.moser@reshorenow.org.
Have you reshored a metal component or product? Apply for the National Metalworking Reshoring Award. The 2026 winner will be introduced at IMTS 2026.
For all topics related to reshoring, visit our reshoring archive.
