# Macro Demand Driver Check: Tariffs, Reshoring, and the Timing Thesis for a US Supplier-Matching Product

Research date: 2026-08-07. Assignment: verify whether the 2025-2026 tariff environment and reshoring wave constitute a uniquely good moment for a "Boardy for supply chain" style US-focused supplier-matching product, and stress-test the thesis with contrary evidence.

## Bottom line up front

The tariff shock is real, large, and has visibly moved trade flows away from direct China imports. But the "reshoring boom" narrative is mostly aspirational: multiple independent data sources (Kearney, IoT Analytics, Reason/Rethink Trade, Fortune) converge on the same conclusion as of mid-2026: manufacturing jobs and output are flat-to-down, the reshoring index is still negative, and companies are increasingly routing around China (Vietnam, Mexico, "transshipment-adjacent" strategies) rather than building in the US. Tariff policy itself has been through a rapid legal and political reversal in 2026 (Supreme Court invalidated IEEPA tariffs in February; a stopgap Section 122 tariff expired in July; new Section 301 tariffs on 80 countries began the same day) which means the rules manufacturers are sourcing against have changed materially at least three times in seven months. That volatility is a genuine tailwind for a product that helps buyers rapidly re-map their supplier base, but it cuts against the idea of a stable, durable "China+1 to the US" migration. The clearest, most defensible demand signal is not "reshoring to the US" but supplier diversification and re-routing generally, of which domestic sourcing is only one destination among several (Vietnam, India, Mexico, and reshuffled China-adjacent supply).

## Tariff levels as of mid-2026: a moving target, not a stable base rate

This is the single most important finding for product timing: there is no single "current tariff rate on China" in 2026. The number has changed repeatedly:

- Trump's April 2025 "Liberation Day" tariffs pushed the effective China rate as high as 145% at the peak (Fortune, citing Alliance Consumer Group's COO Phil Laster).
- By May 2026, various trackers pegged the trade-weighted average US tariff on Chinese goods at roughly 33-37%, stacking a base MFN rate (~3.4%), Section 301 duties (7.5-100% depending on product, with EVs at 100%), Section 232 duties (25-50% on steel/aluminum/autos/copper/timber), and IEEPA-based "fentanyl" (20%) and "reciprocal" (10%) surcharges (TariffTax.org, MSAdvisory, ustariffrates.com aggregation).
- On February 20, 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in *Learning Resources v. Trump* / *Trump v. V.O.S. Selections* that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, striking down the fentanyl and reciprocal tariffs. CBP halted collection February 24. This alone cut the trade-weighted average China rate from about 36.8% to about 29.7% overnight (China Briefing). More than $166 billion in previously collected tariffs was ordered refunded by the Court of International Trade on March 4, 2026 (Skadden, Holland & Knight, White & Case).
- The same day as the ruling, the administration invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (a statute never before used for this purpose) to impose a new temporary global surcharge, starting at 10%, briefly escalating to 125% amid Chinese retaliation, then settling at 10% under a May 2026 interim US-China agreement, later extended to November 10, 2026 following an October meeting (Kelley Drye, Ward and Smith, Gibson Dunn, TariffsTool).
- Section 122 tariffs are statutorily capped at 15% and limited to 150 days; they expired at 12:01am EDT July 24, 2026. The same minute, new Section 301 duties of 10-12.5% on goods from 80 countries took effect as the replacement mechanism (TariffsTool, GingerControl). China-specific Section 301 (25-100% depending on product) and Section 232 (up to 50%) remain stacked on top and were not disturbed by the Supreme Court ruling, since those derive from different statutes (Trade Act Section 301, Trade Expansion Act Section 232) with clearer congressional delegation.
- Net effect as of August 2026: China faces something in the high-20s to mid-30s percent trade-weighted average tariff, still the highest of any major US trading partner, but the *legal basis* for a meaningful chunk of that rate has been litigated, invalidated, replaced, and re-litigated within a single year. A Court of International Trade panel also struck down the Section 122 tariffs in May 2026, with that ruling under appeal and of "limited practical impact" per Skadden, meaning further changes are plausible before year-end.

Implication for the product thesis: buyers cannot treat "the tariff on China" as a fixed planning input. This is double-edged. It increases the value of a tool that helps a buyer quickly identify alternate suppliers when a rate changes (a real, recurring trigger event), but it also means any pitch built on "China now costs X% more, permanently" is standing on sand. The more durable pitch is "the rules keep changing and you need optionality," not "China is now uneconomical."

## Kearney Reshoring Index: the best available reshoring benchmark, and it is not good news for the reshoring thesis

Kearney's Reshoring Index (14th/13th annual editions covering trade through 2025) is the most-cited quantitative reshoring benchmark, built from the ratio of US manufactured-goods imports from 14 Asian low-cost countries/regions (LCCRs) to US domestic manufacturing gross output.

- 2025 Reshoring Index (released April 2025, covering 2024 data): fell 311 points after two positive years, "a reality check." The manufacturing import ratio (MIR) rose 9% back to pre-Covid levels; imports from LCCRs (+10%) outgrew US domestic manufacturing output (+1%).
- 2026 Reshoring Index (released April 2026, covering full-year 2025 data): still negative, reported as roughly -91 to -115 depending on source (PR Newswire summary vs. a separate press citation gave -115 to -86; the exact point figures vary slightly by source/rounding but all agree the index remained solidly negative and only modestly improved). China's direct imports fell by $135 billion year-over-year and its share of US manufactured imports dropped below 10% (from about 20% four years earlier), but other Asian LCCRs collectively gained $193 billion, more than offsetting China's loss. Mexico's US imports rose 8%. Overall US manufacturing imports still rose 4.6% year-over-year, a four-year high, despite the tariff regime. Domestic manufacturing capacity grew only about 1.5% even as reported investment "tripled" on paper, with Kearney partner Patrick Van den Bossche noting policy uncertainty "cause[s] delays and even abandonments of capital projects."
- Kearney's own headline conclusion, quoted directly in secondary coverage: tariffs "didn't seem to drive significant near-term increases in reshoring or reduce America's total import dependence."

This is the strongest single piece of evidence against the "now is a uniquely good reshoring moment" framing. The data shows trade diversion (China to other Asian countries and Mexico), not reshoring to the US.

## Corroborating evidence: reshoring is a plan, not yet a fact

- IoT Analytics' one-year-after-Liberation-Day analysis: manufacturing construction spending is down 21% from its June 2024 peak; electronics/semiconductor construction is down 44% since mid-2024; manufacturing employment is down about 1% since the tariffs; manufactured goods output is down 0.4%. Explicit conclusion: "there is no evidence of a manufacturing reshoring boom" despite headline-grabbing CEO announcements (RTX's $2B pledge, Apogee Enterprises closing a Toronto plant). The one area of genuine, large construction growth is data centers (5x growth since January 2020, +31% YoY as of Jan 2026) and power infrastructure, i.e., AI infrastructure buildout, not general manufacturing reshoring.
- Reason/Rethink Trade (April 2026) and WWD/Sourcing Journal (first-half 2026 data): the US manufactured-goods trade deficit is reported as roughly 5% wider than before the current administration took office. The US lost about 59,000 manufacturing jobs between April and November of the prior year. A cited stat: 81% of CEOs/COOs say they plan to bring supply chains closer to home, but only 2% report having fully completed reshoring or nearshoring plans, i.e., a large intention-to-action gap, "much of the reshoring boom exists in planning documents."
- Fortune (August 5, 2026, very fresh): documents companies actively reversing earlier reshoring/friend-shoring moves now that tariff differentials between China and alternative countries have compressed. Example: Alliance Consumer Group (Texas flashlight maker) moved production to Thailand during the peak tariff spike, then pulled back toward China once China and Vietnam both settled near 12.5% and Cambodia/Indonesia/Malaysia near 10%; COO Phil Laster: "Have we pulled back to China? Yes, we have." Peterson Institute economist Mary Lovely, quoted directly: "Manufacturing is not coming back," arguing tariffs alone cannot achieve reshoring without accompanying subsidies. A separate estimate cited: full US-China decoupling would require roughly $13.7 trillion of investment over 25 years.
- Structural headwinds repeated across sources: US labor, energy, and operating costs still substantially exceed competing manufacturing hubs; nearly 500,000 US manufacturing jobs are reported unfilled due to skills gaps in automation/robotics; China's share of value-added embedded in US imports has stayed roughly flat near 15% even as direct import share fell (18% to 11%), meaning a lot of "reshoring" is actually relabeling/transshipment rather than a real supply-chain change.

## Evidence for genuine demand-side momentum (the case FOR the thesis)

Despite the macro skepticism above, there is real, monetizable behavioral change among manufacturing buyers, which is the more relevant signal for a product bet than the macro reshoring statistics:

- Xometry (public company, NASDAQ: XMTR; the closest existing comparable to a "supplier matchmaking marketplace," and owner of ThomasNet): reported record Q1 2026 results. CEO Randy Altschuler has stated publicly that 42% of US manufacturing CEOs report they have already started reshoring efforts and another 19% are planning to, and that "the majority" of Xometry's US customers choose to manufacture domestically. Xometry explicitly positions its Marketplace plus Thomasnet combination as the tool helping buyers "scale domestic sourcing and navigate tariff-related complexities" (Xometry investor relations, digitalcommerce360 April 2025 CEO interview, Xometry 2026 Manufacturing Outlook page).
- Broader survey data (multiple secondary sources, original surveyor unclear/uncited in the aggregation, treat as directional): roughly 29% of global manufacturing executives report having successfully reshored some operations, and 45% say they are actively pursuing reshoring plans, citing tariffs, rising costs, and geopolitical tension as top drivers. This is consistent with the "intention without full execution" gap flagged by Reason/Rethink Trade above, i.e., it is evidence of *interest and search behavior*, which is exactly what a matchmaking product monetizes, even if full physical reshoring lags.
- China+1 / diversification, which is the more robust and better-evidenced trend than reshoring-to-US specifically: between 2022 and 2025, China's share of US imports fell about 16 percentage points while Vietnam's import share rose 38% and Mexico's rose 52% (aggregated sourcing-strategy blog citing trade data; treat as directional pending primary-source confirmation). ASEAN attracted a reported $225 billion in FDI in 2024. A cited 2024 BCG survey of 180 listed EU manufacturers found 91% had written "China Plus One" into 2025-26 ESG/strategy reporting, with 47% attaching measurable KPIs, indicating diversification is now a formal, board-level, budgeted initiative rather than an ad hoc reaction, which matters for enterprise sales motion.
- Existing competitive signal that the market is already being built for: Sustainment (Austin, founded by military veterans) raised a $12M Series A for an "AI-native sourcing and procurement platform" explicitly targeting US-first/domestic sourcing and defense-industrial-base resilience, dual-use across commercial and DoD. Separately, "Find My Factory" is cited as an AI supplier-discovery tool for specialized categories, and aggregate 2026 VC coverage describes supplier risk/compliance/sustainability software raising roughly $1.7B combined and "AI procurement orchestration" as a funding category with seven companies raising over $1.2B combined (Crunchbase, a16z DoD-contracting-for-startups content, aggregator blog "New Market Pitch"/"entproc.com"; these last figures come from listicle-style secondary sources and should be verified against Crunchbase/Pitchbook directly before being used in a pitch deck).
- I was not able to find hard, first-party Google Trends data, ThomasNet search-volume disclosures, or a specific RFQ-volume statistic from ThomasNet's mid-year sourcing reports within the time available; ThomasNet's "2025 Mid-Year Sourcing Report" and "July 2025 Sourcing Report" exist and are described as covering 80,000+ categories, but the actual numeric findings were not accessible via search snippet and would need a direct fetch of business.thomasnet.com/2025-mid-year-sourcing (paywalled/gated in this pass) or a Google Trends pull for terms like "domestic supplier," "US manufacturer near me," "reshoring supplier" to substantiate the claimed search-demand surge. This is a real gap, flagged rather than papered over.

## Is now a uniquely good moment, and for which direction?

**Skeptical read, weighing both sides:** The macro data does not support "the reshoring wave has arrived, ride it." It supports a narrower, more defensible claim: policy volatility plus real (if partial) diversification away from China has created sustained, elevated *search and re-sourcing activity* among manufacturing buyers, independent of whether that activity culminates in US-based production. Buyers are not confidently reshoring; they are anxiously re-shopping. That is arguably a *better* wedge for a matchmaking product than a reshoring thesis would be, because re-shopping under uncertainty is a recurring, high-frequency behavior (every time a tariff rate or trade rule shifts, which has now happened at least four times in 18 months), whereas a one-time reshoring decision is a single large capex event that a matchmaking product would only touch once.

**Direction assessment:**
- **Domestic-to-domestic matching** (the framing in Phil Shatkin's pitch: BOM in, 50 US suppliers out) is the best-supported near-term wedge given Xometry/ThomasNet's stated customer behavior and the China+1-into-Mexico/Vietnam-and-sometimes-US pattern, but it competes directly with an already-funded, public incumbent (Xometry/ThomasNet) and a funded challenger (Sustainment) explicitly working this exact angle. Differentiation cannot rest on "tariffs are bad, buy American" messaging alone; that message is already owned.
- **Import substitution** (finding non-China suppliers, wherever located, including Vietnam/India/Mexico) is the trend with the strongest, most consistent trade-flow evidence (Kearney's LCCR data, the 2022-2025 import-share shifts) and is probably the larger real market, but it is a more commoditized, existing category (sourcing agents, trading companies like Phil's own 15-year business, Alibaba/Global Sources-style directories) and is harder to differentiate on "warm intro" alone since much of that flow still runs through relationship-based trading companies, which is exactly Phil's stated pain point and opportunity.
- **Export** (helping US manufacturers sell into Asia) was not evidenced as a current demand driver in this pass; nothing in the tariff/reshoring research points to urgency here, and it seems like a distinct product with different buyers.

**Net verdict:** there is a real and current behavioral shift (elevated diversification search activity, high executive-level "planning to reshore/diversify" intent, policy-driven volatility creating recurring re-sourcing triggers) but the strongest macro benchmarks (Kearney, IoT Analytics, Reason/Rethink Trade, Fortune) all independently conclude the *reshoring-to-US* story specifically is overstated relative to press coverage and administration claims. A product should be positioned around "help buyers respond fast to a fast-changing sourcing map" rather than "ride the reshoring boom," and should not assume the current tariff differential favoring domestic-or-Vietnam-over-China is stable; it has already reversed once (Alliance Consumer Group moving back toward China) as tariff levels converged in mid-2026.

## Sources

- [Kearney's 2026 Reshoring Index remains in negative territory (PR Newswire)](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kearneys-2026-reshoring-index-remains-in-negative-territory-302756474.html)
- [Kearney's 2025 Reshoring Index Declines by a Massive 311 Points (PR Newswire)](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kearneys-2025-reshoring-index-declines-by-a-massive-311-points-providing-a-reality-check-on-us-manufacturing-readiness-302441064.html)
- [Kearney's 2026 Reshoring Index remains in negative territory (Morningstar)](https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20260429cg44333/kearneys-2026-reshoring-index-remains-in-negative-territory)
- [Kearney Index Calls 'Reality Check' on Reshoring Trend (SupplyChainBrain)](https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/42671-kearney-index-calls-reality-check-on-reshoring-trend)
- [US Apparel Manufacturing Fell 17% in 2025 (WWD/Sourcing Journal)](https://wwd.com/sourcing-journal/trade/kearney-reshoring-index-usa-domestic-apparel-manufacturing-1238945612/)
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