The Supply Chain Illusion: Why 'Reshoring' Is Not Happening
May 5, 2026 · Frisian News
Western governments promised to bring manufacturing home after the pandemic, but companies continue to source from low-cost countries. The numbers show reshoring remains a political fantasy.
A factory shrank its workforce after shifting orders to a lower-cost country. This quiet reversal tells the real story that politicians refuse to admit: reshoring was never the plan, and it never will be.
Governments across Europe and North America spent years promoting reshoring as the answer to fragile supply chains. Ministers gave speeches about independence and strength. Companies nodded along in public statements. But when contract time came, manufacturers moved production to cheaper countries faster than before. Labor costs in Western nations remain significantly higher than in Southeast Asia, and no amount of subsidies can close that gap.
The numbers prove this. Official reshoring figures from Brussels and Washington count only projects worth mentioning to voters. They ignore the far larger volume of new manufacturing that never left Asia in the first place. Electronics, textiles, and basic chemicals expanded output while European factories downsized. The statistics hide this by measuring only the factories that came home, not the ones that never left.
Why do governments push this fiction? Reshoring sounds good during elections. It promises jobs and dignity without asking citizens to pay more for goods or accept lower consumption. It lets leaders blame "globalism" while avoiding the real choice: either accept lower wages or higher prices. Most voters want neither, so politicians offer them reshoring instead.
Companies know the truth. They build factories where costs are lowest, and they always will. Subsidies slow the shift but never stop it. Until Western workers accept either lower pay or Western consumers accept higher prices, reshoring will remain what it has always been: a campaign promise that dissolves the moment it meets reality.
Published May 5, 2026 · Frisian News