Other countries simply don't have the same supply lines and trained workforce. There are no other countries with anything even remotely comparable to something like Shenzhen's electronics market, for example. Who wants to go to a different country when your product will take longer to ship, will have a worse quality, and will be more expensive to manufacture?
Besides, the US doesn't have a stable foreign policy. Moving your manufacturing to a different country takes years, why would anyone start that process when there is zero guarantee that the same tariffs will be in place a month from now, let alone a year or two from now?
And where would you move to? Any country which attracts a significant amount of manufacturing is pretty much guaranteed to be hit with the same kind of tariffs. The only safe option is the US itself - but it's often cheaper to just accept the tariffs!
I bet a lot of companies are just going to accept the revenue loss and wait for the US to stop acting crazy. The tariffs are only just starting to hit and people are already getting mad. This won't last forever.
> Other countries simply don't have the same supply lines and trained workforce
This is tempered, isn't it?
1) the whole advantage of China that we exploited WAS a large untrained uneducated workforce. That wasn't worth it anymore and things like textiles have already largely moved.
Of course, this doesn't apply to a number of sectors like electronics. But:
2) anyone educated and/or with money is scrambling to leave China, and this is nothing new.
Other countries simply don't have the same supply lines and trained workforce. There are no other countries with anything even remotely comparable to something like Shenzhen's electronics market, for example. Who wants to go to a different country when your product will take longer to ship, will have a worse quality, and will be more expensive to manufacture?
Besides, the US doesn't have a stable foreign policy. Moving your manufacturing to a different country takes years, why would anyone start that process when there is zero guarantee that the same tariffs will be in place a month from now, let alone a year or two from now?
And where would you move to? Any country which attracts a significant amount of manufacturing is pretty much guaranteed to be hit with the same kind of tariffs. The only safe option is the US itself - but it's often cheaper to just accept the tariffs!
I bet a lot of companies are just going to accept the revenue loss and wait for the US to stop acting crazy. The tariffs are only just starting to hit and people are already getting mad. This won't last forever.