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by bobthepanda 803 days ago
Onshoring is mostly happening because the disruption due to factory/port COVID lockdowns in China, and then all the issues with ports and canals domestically, made it quite clear that the long distance transpacific supply chain cannot be the only option. At least with Mexico and Canada there are dozens of land crossings that can be diverted to. And if you cannot sell for six months due to supply issues but your competitor can you may as well be a sitting duck.
1 comments

IMO onshoring is mostly happening at this point because of tariffs. The supply chain crisis is over and has been for a while at this point, but everything coming from China is still 25% more expensive than it used to be.
over =/= could never happen again. and it doesn't even have to be the exact same scenario.

right now the panama is at lower capacity due to droughts and the red sea leading to the suez is a conflict zone.

Yeah, but the problem is that your competitors dictate what you have to do. If they keep their supply chain in Asia because it gives them a significant price advantage, then you're overpriced. For on-shoring to work, you need to be able to survive such a structural disadvantage in the short-term AND the advantage you realize when outlier events happen has to outweigh the structural disadvantage.