Source: Manufacturing Dive
Date: 4th September 2026 

More U.S. manufacturers are moving production closer to home, but policy uncertainty, workforce constraints and sourcing challenges show that reshoring is becoming part of a broader supply-chain redesign rather than a simple return to domestic production.

Reshoring activity among U.S. manufacturers is gaining momentum as companies reassess where they produce and source goods amid tariffs, geopolitical risks and increasing pressure to build more resilient supply chains.

According to the 2026 U.S. Reshoring Survey, 36% of surveyed original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) said they had already reshored or were actively engaged in reshoring, compared with 29% in 2025. The study included 118 OEMs and 131 contract manufacturers.

Investment intentions point to further movement. Around 63% of OEMs said they plan capital investment in reshoring or other U.S. manufacturing expansion during 2026 or 2027.

But the picture is far from a wholesale return of manufacturing to the United States. Around 31% of OEMs have no plans to reshore, while others are still considering their options or have no imported production to relocate.

Tariffs and geopolitical risk drive decisions. Tariffs have become one of the strongest motivations behind reshoring decisions, cited by 65% of OEM respondents, followed closely by geopolitical risk at 60%.

Manufacturers are also increasingly looking beyond the purchase price of components when deciding where production should take place.

Around 40% of OEMs now use Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) when evaluating sourcing decisions, compared with 30% in 2025. This broader calculation can incorporate transportation, inventory, lead times, reliability and other costs associated with maintaining longer international supply chains.

The shift is significant: reshoring decisions are increasingly being evaluated as supply-chain decisions rather than manufacturing-cost decisions alone.

Reshoring brings benefits and new challenges. Manufacturers that have reshored report several operational advantages, particularly faster speed to market, improved on-time delivery and lower logistics costs.

However, moving production closer to customers does not eliminate supply-chain challenges.

Companies continue to face higher labour and overhead costs, shortages of skilled workers and gaps in domestically available components. Policy uncertainty is another major concern, with 57% of surveyed OEMs identifying it as their biggest challenge.

This highlights an important distinction: manufacturers may be willing to adapt to higher or different costs, but frequent changes in trade policy make long-term sourcing and investment decisions more difficult.

What This Means

• Growing reshoring activity could gradually reshape freight flows rather than simply reduce international trade.
• Companies may source more components domestically while continuing to import specialised materials and products that cannot be competitively produced locally. This could lead to increasingly hybrid supply chains combining domestic, regional and global sourcing.
• For logistics planning, the result may be changing trade lanes, inventory strategies, warehousing requirements and transportation networks rather than the disappearance of international supply chains.

Reshoring should not be viewed simply as moving a factory from one country to another.

The broader trend is toward supply-chain diversification, determining which products should be produced locally, which should remain globally sourced and where inventory and logistics infrastructure should be positioned.

As manufacturers increasingly evaluate total landed cost, resilience and delivery performance alongside production cost, logistics will play an increasingly important role in determining where manufacturing makes the most operational and economic sense.