Offshoring decisions made in the 2000s rested on a wide labor cost gap and cheap, predictable freight. Both assumptions have weakened: tariffs add points to landed cost, container rates proved they can spike severalfold in a crisis, and long ocean lead times force buffer inventory that ties up cash. Meanwhile automation has cut labor content in many products, shrinking the gap that justified the move. Reshoring brings production home; its sibling nearshoring moves it to a nearby country instead, trading some labor savings for shorter lanes.

The decision is a total landed cost problem plus a risk problem. Price the domestic option against the offshore one with duty, freight, inventory carrying cost, expedite history, and engineering travel included, then weigh the supply chain resilience factors that resist unit math. Reshoring fails most often where labor content is high or where the sub-tier ecosystem (platings, castings, passives) never existed domestically, so the "domestic" part still waits on imported inputs.

Speed is the underrated driver: co-locating engineering and production compresses iteration loops, an argument laid out in China Time. When teams re-quote parts across domestic and offshore suppliers, LightSource compares the quotes line by line with freight and duty broken out, so the landed-cost answer is visible rather than assumed.