6. Department of State · Minor
Shift global manufacturing out of the PRC to Latin America
Printed page 184 6. Department of State
“First, the United States must do everything possible, with both resources and messaging, to shift global manufacturing and industry from more distant points around the globe (especially from the increasingly hostile and human rights-abusing PRC) to Central and South American countries.”
What has happened
- Not started
Searched; no initiative to move manufacturing from the PRC to Central and South America was found, and the administration's own strategy points the other way on the hemisphere. The National Security Strategy of November 2025 treats Chinese production in Latin America as a problem rather than a goal — “The United States imports Chinese goods indirectly from middlemen and Chinese-built factories in a dozen countries, including Mexico … China continues, however, to export to the United States through other proxy countries” — and its remedy is to rebalance bilateral trade with China, not to relocate manufacturing southward. Neither resources nor messaging directed at Central and South American manufacturing appear in the Federal Register, in whitehouse.gov presidential actions, or in the Department's 2025-2026 press index; the one hemisphere supply-chain event found, the APEC Alliance for Supply Chain Connectivity roundtable hosted in Mexico City on 2026-01-13, is an APEC connectivity meeting, not a relocation program. The reciprocal-tariff regime applies to Latin American producers as well.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Negative search: White House presidential actions and presidential documents in the Federal Register searched for “western hemisphere”, “nearshor”, “supply chain”, and country names (Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Paraguay); state.gov’s sitemap, 15,094 URLs, searched for “nearshor”, “reciprocal-trade” and “supply-chain”. The Western Hemisphere Nearshoring Act (H.R. 509) was introduced 2025-01-16 and referred to committee — a bill that has only been introduced is not started, and in any case the Quote does not require Congress.
- Lead: the United States hosted the APEC A2C2 regional roundtable in Mexico City, https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/01/the-united-states-hosts-apec-alliance-for-supply-chain-connectivity-a2c2-regional-roundtable-in-mexico-city/ — surfaced from the sitemap, not opened in full.
- Action
- transfer
- Object
- Global manufacturing and industry supply chains
- ID
- 488