It took Jacob Rothman two decades to build a Chinese manufacturing business with his friends and family. Now the 49-year-old American executive says customers want him to make some of his grilling tools and kitchen products elsewhere. He knows it isn’t going to be easy.
“There’s not a customer that we have that isn’t pressuring us, suggesting, hoping that we will build factories outside of China,” says the co-chief executive of Velong Enterprises Co., which has six factories in mainland China and serves big retailers and consumer brands such as Walmart Inc. and grill maker Weber Inc. Yet “there’s nothing like China,” he added. “We’ve built this supply chain for 30 years to work like a Swiss clock. There’s just nothing like it.
Mr Rothman is being subsidized by US taxpayers. He sells products here made overseas. He extracts profits & cost of materials & labor but returns nothing to the domestic economy. Shameful. MarshaBlackburn BillHagertyTN
Manufacturing in China is no longer an opportunity but a liability.