While the companies varied in sizes, industries, and reasons for wanting to break free of China to reshore, there was one common denominator—they wanted the stability of an American economic system—including its supply chain—and the American workforce that keep it going. The bottom line is that America’s GDP is $30.57 trillion to China’s $19.23 trillion—certainly enough of a difference to make a difference, especially when considering riding out turbulent economic times in uncharted waters.
One major draw for companies to offshore to China after 1990 was the endless number of low-wage laborers—tech giants such as Apple paid Chinese workers between $2 and $3 dollars an hour. As we previously quoted Chinese policy expert Emily de La Bruyere, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), and founder of Horizon Advisory, that when it comes to foreign companies breaking away from China, a higher percentage of Chinese ownership in foreign companies usually calls for a slower decoupling strategy. So far, her prediction is spot on. Though one could argue that in 2022, and especially 2023 and 2024, decoupling may have taken a faster track than the experts predicted.
One of De La Bruyere's main examples of decoupling on a grand scale is Europe’s major aerospace company Airbus—23% of Airbus’ revenues come from China. Last year the company’s revenues were listed at $75 billion. Airbus traded science and technology (including avionics) for its significant Chinese market share. De La Bruyere states that Airbus will not always have such a significant share of the Chinese market due to China’s domestic expansion as its economy continues to grow due to its massive amounts of imports to America, Europe, and everywhere else. In other words, she’s saying that one day soon, Airbus may not have such a significant Chinese market share—it may have no share at all. The Chinese will just build their own version of Airbus.
Another cause and effect of reshoring is how supply chain collapse showed how the nimblest supply chain wins. If ports are shut down in quarantine, product is not moving; when product sits in warehouses waiting for the government’s green light, business grinds to a halt. Even if the labor costs are higher in America than China, the ability to quickly acquire raw materials, have rapid manufacturing lead times, and offer fast shipping may offer the best value.
Published in September of 2023, a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) headline read: “Reshoring: More than 90% of companies in North America have relocated their production processes and supply chain in the last five years.” Also, at nearly the exact time, Deloitte’s ‘Future of Freight’ report claimed such a reshoring shift could reduce the share of Asian imports to the U.S. by 40% by 2030. While there may be vagaries in the first report, such as the 90% represents “partial” reshoring, and if the prediction of 40% by 2030 is even halfway accurate, then it does dovetail with the recent rush of American manufacturing commitments in 2025. Also, it’s unclear whether BCG’s 90% is a combination of reshoring and near-shoring since they cite both.
However, thus far, 2025 offers clear indicators of reshoring.
In 2025, the U.S. has a solid $13 trillion committed to the American economy alone, which is nearing the total of last year’s entire Chinese GDP ($19.2). Companies are returning. While American manufacturing may never reach 53% of its total GDP again, it’s certainly building up to a manufacturing “renaissance” looking at the company names and amounts they are putting into the sector. For a list of companies and dollar amounts stretching into May of 2025, click this article link and scroll to the end. Manfacturing commitments in 2025
Strikes and business upturns and downturns are often cyclic. It’s possible several CEOs foresaw the Chinese worker strikes of April and May of 2025 based on previous Chinese worker strikes. And who knows if it’s still going on—China seems to have a magic wand as to mute the international press. Literally, only one or two outlets mentioned the strikes on the entire Web across multiple search engines and, surprisingly, none of the sites looked familiar. Most links recounted previous Chinese strikes years prior which were mostly irrelevant to 2025. Such is typical of communist governments without free Internet press organizations. Still, it’s hard to hide the collapse of generational events unfolding in real time, such as the near simultaneous crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain (1989-1990).
What added fuel to the Chinese worker strikes was worker wages are trending up: On December 11 of 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization. Back then, while the average American made $31,000 (dollars), the average Chinese worker took home $1,127 (dollars). By 2011, the average Chinese worker made $6,120 annually while the average American took home $40,000—the gap was shrinking. According to Forbes, in 2021, the average Chinese worker made $16,153 while average American salary hovered around $60,000 at that time. China is catching up fast. The trend is obvious.
And so is the race to reshore American manufacturing. And it’s a race that could benefit Americans in the process.
