Friendshoring: what is it and can it solve our supply problems?

With offshoring now faltering, a US-led trend sees firms shifting manufacturing and more to countries with shared values. But this won't be cost-free

Offshoring was followed by reshoring - and now US officials' latest wheeze to deal with massive global supply chain disruption is friendshoring". The turbulent events of recent years - including Donald Trump's trade wars, the Covid-19 crisis and Russia's invasion of Ukraine - have called into question the vision of a globalised economy.

Many of the western companies that embraced offshoring - cutting costs by shifting manufacturing to countries with cheaper labour - have been encouraged by tariffs and pandemic supply chain disruption to bring production back to their home country, in a trend known as onshoring or reshoring.