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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Here's a "grassroots" initiative bringing manufacturing back to the USA from Asia, https://reshorenow.org/ It was started by Harry Moser, the third generation of his family involved in USA manufacturing--primarily the Singer Sewing Machine Company... at one time a huge New Jersey factory of 5 million square feet. His main tool is free-to-use software, the

Total Cost of Ownership Estimator

Most companies make sourcing decisions based solely on price, oftentimes resulting in a 20 to 30 percent miscalculation of actual offshoring costs. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Estimator is a free online tool that helps companies account for all relevant factors — overhead, balance sheet, risks, corporate strategy and other external and internal business considerations — to determine the true total cost of ownership. Using this information, companies can better evaluate sourcing, identify alternatives and even make a case when selling against offshore competitors. See Impact of Using TCO Instead of Price for further explanation.

The message makes sense to this AC, don't worry about national politics, work the cost numbers in detail and let the numbers guide purchasing decisions. He reports that many, many purchasing managers never look beyond the simple price quote--of course that will be cheaper from off-shore. The reality is that when all the relevant factors are included, in many cases it's actually cheaper to buy locally.

For a somewhat independent assessment, the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) summarizes the Reshoring Initiative year-end report from 2024 here, https://www.amtonline.org/article/reshoring-initiative-annual-report-287-000-jobs-announced with a Figure 2 caption, "Reshoring Initiative Library: The cumulative number of jobs brought back since 2010 is nearing two million (Figure 2) - about 40% of what we lost to offshoring."

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