Despite sweeping changes in trade policy and billions of dollars in manufacturing investment, Kearney's latest Reshoring Index remains in negative territory, improving slightly from -115 to -91 but still indicating continued reliance on imports.

The report found that U.S. imports of manufactured goods increased 4.6% last year, even as direct imports from China declined significantly.

Instead of moving to the United States, much of that production shifted to other countries.

“China lost $135 billion,” Van den Bossche says. “But the other Asian low-cost countries picked up even more in absolute dollar value.”

Mexico also continued to benefit, becoming one of the primary destinations for manufacturing activity redirected from China.

According to Van den Bossche, much of that growth came from electronics assembly. But the movement of final assembly does not necessarily mean the underlying supply chain has changed.

“The parts, on the other hand, they are still coming from China — that's where all the money is,” he says.

That distinction is critical.

While final assembly increasingly happens in Mexico and other countries closer to the U.S. market, much of the higher-value component manufacturing remains concentrated in Asia.

As a result, companies are changing supply chains without necessarily becoming less dependent on overseas production.

One reason is uncertainty.

Van den Bossche says executives continue to face shifting tariffs, geopolitical tensions, permitting delays, labor shortages, financing costs and policy changes that make long-term planning difficult.

“We're seeing a lot of hedging, but not a lot of committing,” he says.

Rather than making irreversible investments, companies are pursuing what Kearney calls reversible moves.

Those include building inventory, adding dual sourcing strategies, diversifying countries of origin and changing suppliers.

According to Van den Bossche, 86% of companies surveyed built inventory ahead of tariff changes, while many others shifted suppliers, added dual sourcing strategies and diversified countries of origin. By comparison, only about 20% seriously considered bringing manufacturing back. 

Confidence in reshoring economics has also weakened.

Kearney found that the share of executives who believed reshoring would generate an acceptable return on investment dropped from 47% to 18% over the past year.

That hesitation reflects a larger challenge.

The United States still lacks much of the supplier ecosystem needed to support large-scale reshoring.

“We don't really have that deep upstream supplier ecosystem,” Van den Bossche says.

While North America maintains strong assembly capabilities, many Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers remain concentrated overseas.

Van den Bossche argues that tariffs alone cannot solve that problem.

Manufacturers also need stronger supplier networks, skilled labor, competitive costs and stable policy conditions.

“Companies just cannot invest if the rules change every quarter,” he says.

One executive quoted in the report summarized the situation this way:

“The manufacturing team is ready to run onto the field. We just need the goalposts to stop moving.”

Van den Bossche does see opportunities.

Certain sectors—including electrical equipment, fabricated metals, furniture and some textile categories—are beginning to show signs of reshoring because transportation costs, customization requirements and proximity to customers create economic advantages.

But he believes the future is unlikely to be a simple return to domestic manufacturing.

Instead, companies are building more diversified supply networks.

“We're not choosing between global and local,” one executive told Kearney. “We're building redundancy.”

For Van den Bossche, that may be the most important takeaway from the report.

“What looks a little bit like a reshoring push has, in reality, really been a reconfiguration of global supply chains,” he says.