Tariff uncertainty is generating interest in the brand, shows e-commerce analyses.
It’s been about two months since President Trump announced broad tariffs on virtually all U.S. imports and then began broad negotiations with many U.S. trading partners. Just this week, federal court rulings questioned the legal grounds invoked to set those and other tariffs, further complicating plans not only for retailers with offshore supply chains but the administration’s immediate trade agenda.
So now the lawyers got it. Okay. But, come what may in the court room, the decade-long shift in American politics toward increased trade skepticism will continue. Even as some retailers think tariffs – an established and effective policy tool – are about to vanish. Chinese manufacturers that rely on U.S. customers don’t think that. And neither do the customers.
In fact, there’s an ongoing boom in Made In USA’ searches on e-commerce sites, suggesting American consumers are adjusting their habits. From Modern Retail:
Search interest for “Made in USA” goods has surged in recent weeks, since President Trump’s tariff hikes on Chinese imports hit in April. Amazon searches for the phrase shot up to 126,000 from 26,000 in the past 30 days — nearly five times the previous period. As Modern Retail previously reported, brands followed suit, adding the label to over 151,000 Amazon listings and racking up an estimated $5.1 billion in sales. Yet experts say much of this is a marketing maneuver — not a shift in supply chains.
“What we’re witnessing isn’t a patriotic wave so much as a keyword land-grab,” Greg Zakowicz, senior e-commerce expert at Omnisend, said in an email statement. “Tariffs rewired shopper behavior overnight, and the first brands to plant ‘Made in USA’ in their titles are winning the algorithm, even if their factories haven’t moved an inch.”
Indeed, the factories are still offshore. Trump’s “effective trade embargo on China has not dented exports from the world’s largest manufacturer, which offset plummeting shipments to the United States with a surge in sales to Southeast Asia,” reported the Washington Post recently. “The rise in exports to Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand — all countries identified by analysts as rerouting hubs — shows how China is increasingly shipping products through third countries to keep goods flowing.”
Meanwhile, companies that have announced investments in U.S. production capacity – i.e., new factory construction – are eager to talk those up. There are also new Made In USA advertising campaigns, particularly being run by auto brands; some are just kinda leaning into the rhetoric, while others more explicitly touting where they’re doing their manufacturing. Like Ford, notes AdWeek:
Ford announced its Q1 earnings on May 5 and, while its revenues of $40.7 billion represented a 5% dip from the same period last year and “tariff-related uncertainty” prompted the company to suspend its guidance, company officials sounded an optimistic note about its reduced exposure to tariffs as a result of its extensive domestic manufacturing.
Addressing the tariff situation, CEO Jim Farley told analysts that “it’s clear that in this new environment, automakers with the largest U.S. footprint will have a big advantage, and boy is that true for Ford. It puts us in the pole position.”
The tariff story isn’t going anywhere soon, and the longer they persist, the more consumer activity is likely to change. We’ll be watching the shifts too.