Nearshoring progress might be slower than investors think

A worker produces inflatable toys for exportion at a factory in Huaibei, in China’s eastern Anhui province on Feb. 15.STR/AFP/Getty Images Business trends - or, more precisely, expectations about business trends - have a way of getting ahead of themselves. The current enthusiasm over nearshoring might well be a case in point. It's easy to see where it comes from, though. The COVID-19 pandemic threw global supply chains into disarray. Shipping costs soared and geopolitical events, including increasingly frosty relations between China and the United States, heightened the business community's already intense focus on figuring out ways to make supply…