Bailey Schulz, USA TODAY
9 min read
Winton Machine, an Atlanta-based manufacturer, is desperate to hire. So far, there are few takers.
CEO and co-founder Lisa Winton has been searching for a salesperson since March. A mechanist job has been open even longer, with less than a dozen applications over the past year – none of whom had the skillset required for the job.
Winton has done what she can to attract workers, like forming a relationship with local technical colleges, offering applicants flexible hours and rehiring retirees. Still, keeping her staffing up has been a challenge.
The push for more domestic manufacturing through tariffs, Winton worries, will only make matters worse.
“If more factories move into an area, who are they competing with? They’re competing with other factories," she said. "Whether it be machinists or maintenance or assembly, all of the different types of jobs that are available – they have to come from somewhere.”
President Donald Trump has said his tariffs, which range from a 10% baseline tariff on trade partners to 50% on steel imports, will have jobs and factories “come roaring back.”
“The end game is to have production here. Any country that wants to produce here doesn’t pay a tariff. That’s the ultimate solution,” Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, told ABC News in early April.
It’s not clear that America is prepared for that shift.
Building new manufacturing facilities can take up to 10 years, depending on the industry, and experts say the country's infrastructure isn't primed to handle additional factories. Meanwhile, a manufacturing labor shortage could mean new factories have a hard time filling roles.
“If the Trump administration’s vision is to bring manufacturing back to America en masse – not just in a few sectors, but en masse – that vision isn’t realistic," said Nancy Qian, an economics professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
It’s not clear how many businesses will shift production to the U.S. because of tariffs. Those that do reshore face a lengthy process.
“Most companies do not make a decision to onshore or to build a new factory or plant lightly,” said Erin McLaughlin, a senior economist at the Conference Board, a nonprofit business-research group. “This is something for most companies that they strategize many years in advance.”
First, companies must figure out where to build. The location needs to be close to transportation corridors, good water supplies and on a stable electric grid – something easier said than done with current U.S. infrastructure, which earned a C in its 2025 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers, according to McLaughlin.
