*** #1 in the US Amazon Economics and Management category
*** Foreign Policy Book of the Year 2024
*** Urgent addition of the Korean version preface!

"A wave of supply chain restructuring triggered by the pandemic and accelerated by the Trump 2.0 era."
- If you want to truly understand American reshoring, read this book!
- What challenges and opportunities does the Korean economy face amid the US-China conflict and the limitations of just-in-time production?

"We were importing too many goods from Asia, including China!" The US was made painfully aware of this during the COVID-19 lockdown.
While Korea temporarily suffered from shortages of masks and vehicle urea solution during the pandemic, the "consumer-oriented nation" of the United States experienced a severe supply chain crisis across all sectors, from individuals to businesses and government, from food to exercise equipment to various electronic chips.
It was a moment when I suddenly realized that countless production and distribution processes were involved in factories all over the world, especially in China, before I could obtain even one ordinary item.


The global supply chain, scarred by the pandemic, is poised for accelerated collapse.
The global supply chain, already teetering on the brink of collapse due to the pursuit of extreme efficiency through just-in-time (JIT) production, loss of market transparency, and poor treatment of workers within the supply chain, is now teetering in the face of the US-China conflict and the "America First" policies of the Trump 2.0 era.
The United States now looks at its previously "efficient" global supply chains—the global collaboration to finish a single product—with a whole new perspective.
The author is Peter S., a veteran business writer at The New York Times.
From the port of Ningbo, China, to various parts of the United States and South America, where nearshoring is gaining popularity, Goodman vividly captures the front lines of supply chain restructuring through "people's stories."
As I wrote in the preface to the Korean edition, Korea's future is shrouded in uncertainty, further deepened by Trump's re-election, but another door of opportunity will open.
This book also provides new insights from an investor's perspective.

Hyundai Motor Company built a state-of-the-art factory in the southeastern United States, hoping it would provide insurance against turbulent events that could shake the global economy.
Hyundai has given its $7.6 billion plant in a small Georgia town a grandiose name: Metaplant America, a nod to the company's ambitions.
Metaplant America was slated to be used as a production base for the latest vehicles designed by South Korean auto giant Hyundai, including electric vehicles under brands such as Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.

--- From the "Preface to the Korean Edition"

Southern California appeared to have its ports blocked.
Off the coast of the closely connected ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, more than 50 massive ships were stranded in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean.
What was thought to be a matter of days for these ships to dock and wait for their turn to unload their cargo turned out to be weeks.
Some of the affluent people, unable to overcome their curiosity, went to the water's edge with binoculars and tried to count the boats lined up along the dark blue horizon, but to no avail.
It wasn't because of the war.
It was a sight to behold as the world economy came to a standstill.
In October 2021, the Earth was hit by the worst pandemic in a century.

--- From the "Prologue"

Chipmakers shifted chip production from the United States across the Pacific to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan decades ago.
This was primarily to allow major chip users like Apple to reduce inventory while leveraging low-cost suppliers.
Now, with chip shortages crippling its balance sheet and growing concerns about geopolitical risks weighing on Taiwan, U.S. chipmaker Intel has announced plans to invest $20 billion in a new factory in Arizona.
So why did Intel wait so long? At least part of the answer lies in the $26 billion it spent on stock buybacks in the two years before the pandemic.
The money could have been used to expand production capacity.
The chip shortage has also had a devastating impact on industries far removed from automobiles and electronics, hindering aid to people suffering from life-threatening diseases.
--- From Chapter 4, “Lean Taliban”

The most immediate reason for the shipping industry's turmoil was the severe shortage of shipping containers.
As Americans began to stock their homes to weather the pandemic, Chinese factories churned out so much inventory that they caused container shortages at nearly every port.

Large retailers like Amazon and Walmart essentially have contracts with ocean carriers that guarantee their container shipments.
As the situation became so dire that even these giant companies were having trouble shipping their cargo, they chartered container ships to continue carrying the products they needed.
--- From Chapter 7, “The shipping company is preying on the shipper.”

Unlike the president who had appointed him chairman, Mapei did not believe that the ocean shipping companies' ability to raise freight rates so sharply was due to their market dominance.
He said that the shipping industry is a unique industry where national interests have a greater influence than corporate interests, and therefore should not be viewed through the traditional lens of anti-monopoly.
This situation has long been advantageous to American importers and exporters.
They had been enjoying the benefits of cheap transportation costs until now.
“The current situation has not been a problem for 20 years,” Mapei told me.

--- From Chapter 9, “I’ve Heard That Name Before”

This railway construction project began in 1863.
As Chinese workers played a key role in building what was then the largest infrastructure project in American history, the way they were treated then became the standard by which railroad companies treated their workers for generations to come.
Accordingly, respect for human dignity has been pushed to the back burner, and profitability has become the most important consideration.
--- From Chapter 13, “Building Railroads Anywhere at Public Expenses”

Financial gain has determined the form of almost all production markets.
The investor class has built global production and distribution networks based on efficiency.
But this efficiency was, above all else, a variant of efficiency that prioritized profit even at the expense of credibility.
Companies, obsessed with cutting costs, moved production overseas.
At the same time, just-in-time production and lean manufacturing required inventory reduction.
This created the perfect conditions for problems to arise.
The unbridled celebration of scale has provided monopolists with opportunities to dominate once-competitive markets.
As a result, the economy has become more susceptible to shortages and price hikes once a shock occurs.
--- From Chapter 17, “The Free Market is Gone”

As the world reduced its reliance on Chinese factories, it seemed certain that prices for a wide range of consumer goods would rise.
This essentially meant giving up the efficiency that had long defined the era of profit maximization in exchange for reducing vulnerability to crisis.
Instead of buying large quantities of goods at rock-bottom prices from Chinese factories, multinational corporations would have to expand their production bases around the world.
This would require becoming familiar with other countries' rules, production facilities, and power structures, and would require deploying new personnel.
Then, running a business would become complicated and cost a lot of money and time.
This meant that the prices of the products being sold were likely to increase.
--- From Chapter 18, “There is a need to diversify production plants”

Shupe was acutely aware that producing a product in China gave the impression that something was wrong, while producing it in the United States gave customers the impression that they were on the right side of history.
Manufacturing in the United States not only meant investing in American soil, but also combating climate change by reducing the carbon emissions associated with shipping containers across the ocean.
This was not something that could be achieved by redirecting orders to Vietnam or other countries in Asia.
After all, the ordered goods had to cross the Pacific Ocean to reach American consumers.
--- From Chapter 19, “Globalization is now dead”

Bill Chan, an executive at Wenhua's Shenzhen headquarters, contacted Zhang through the Chinese social media platform WeChat.
His question was direct.
How much land is available? (34 hectares.) What are the local road conditions like? (Not great, but improving.) Are there any authentic Chinese restaurants nearby? (There aren't any.)
A few weeks later, Wenhua contacted us with an offer to purchase the land.
Chan became CEO of Wenhua's Mexican subsidiary.
Chan had never been to Mexico, let alone this industrial complex.
He decided not to hesitate and invested $300 million to build a factory.
“Our main market is the United States.
“I don’t want to lose that market,” Chan said with a shrug.
--- From Chapter 20, “Yes, Mexico, Please Save Us”

The Korean sales manager told me this.
“Many North American manufacturers, having experienced the pandemic, supply chain crisis, and the COVID-19 shutdown in China, are trying to avoid risk as much as possible.
Globalization is over.
Now it's localization.
Globalization only works when the geopolitical situation is stable.
“We are clearly at a turning point where globalization is entering a dangerous phase.”
It is not true that globalization is over.
The mere fact that no place on Earth is self-sufficient makes the advantages of international trade undeniable.

--- From Chapter 20, “Yes, Mexico, Please Save Us”