Nevertheless, the tariffs redirected supply chains away from China toward other low-cost manufacturing hubs, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and India.
When President Donald Trump unveiled his Liberation Day tariffs last year, he pledged that the steeper taxes would cause manufacturing jobs to “come roaring back into our country.”
And as recently as last week, the Trump administration asserted that this was unfolding. The White House claimed that “the policies are delivering the largest reshoring wave in American history,” citing promised investments from companies like Apple and U.S. Steel.
A fresh independent assessment casts doubt on that conclusion.
Trump’s tariffs “didn’t seem to drive significant near-term increases in reshoring or reduce America’s total import dependence,” concludes a new report from Kearney, a global management consulting firm.
Nevertheless, the tariffs did have a noticeable effect on where the United States sources its imports.
Imports from China declined by $135 billion last year relative to 2024, a drop of roughly 10 percent. Meanwhile, imports from the 13 other Asian nations covered in Kearney’s analysis rose by a combined $193 billion.
Those figures suggest that a broader set of international manufacturers is relocating production away from mainland China to other low-cost countries—such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and India—rather than bringing production back to the United States.
In the meantime, American imports from Canada fell by $25 billion last year, while imports from Europe rose by about $62 billion despite higher tariffs and heightened tensions between the Trump administration and European leaders. However, the Kearney report notes that much of the European uptick occurred in the first quarter—perhaps the result of firms rushing to boost U.S. imports before the tariffs were enacted—and that overall U.S.–European trade declined for the rest of the year.
So what about all that investment in American manufacturing that the Trump administration keeps bragging about?
That is happening. The Kearney report indicates that capital investment in U.S. manufacturing has tripled since 2020, but that spending has produced only about a 1.5 percent increase in U.S. manufacturing capacity. In some instances, that is because it takes years for investments to translate into functioning factories.
In other cases, however, progress is being impeded by other government policies—including the tariffs.
The Kearney study points out that “structural constraints such as labor costs, infrastructure limitations, and workforce availability” act as “persistent barriers” to reshoring.
“But perhaps the greatest need is for clarity and stability, which are easy enough to achieve in theory, but have been elusive in the past 12 months,” the Kearney report concludes.
Trump’s tariffs may have represented a costly way to deter reliance on China, but the Kearney findings add to the growing view that his trade policies are not accomplishing their primary aims. In fact, by fostering instability and uncertainty—and by raising the cost of inputs and contributing to rising inflation—the tariffs appear to hinder reshoring of manufacturing jobs.
The White House will keep touting new investments in American factories, for obvious reasons. Yet it is increasingly clear that these investments are occurring not because of the tariffs, but in spite of them.
