[daraul]

It's not just a weaker dollar causing manufacturing to return to the US, though (especially relative to China) that is definitely part of the cause.

Rising fuel costs threaten global supply chains. Especially in areas that have a less-than-cordial relationship with the US such as China, there is some uncertainty that things will stay as they are.

Another powerful trend that is reinvigorating the US manufacturing industry is the re-evaluation of the spoils of offshoring. Companies such as GE are discovering that there are many side benefits to bringing production back to the US: Shorter supply chains from manufacturing to retail, better quality from production, and greater feedback from shop floor to engineering.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-inso...

One of the biggest unaccounted costs of offshoring was the effects it had on the lifecycle of a product. That article points out how GE was able to take a $1600 water-heater from China and sell it for a profit $1300, just by manufacturing it from the US. It turns out that in off-shoring the production, they lost most of the feedback in the product's lifecycle that enabled them to refine the design far beyond what they thought was 'final'.