Affordability Is a Problem, but Better Supply Chain PR Will Help 

A recent article in Politico was blunt about the affordability problem in US politics: “What really matters is this cost-of-living issue, which people don’t view as having been solved by Trump coming into office.” For all the fury swirling about ICE, Greenland, and a revived Monroe Doctrine, nothing matters more to US voters than affordability. People increasingly believe a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach. 

And yet, growing awareness of supply chains is an opening to tackle affordability as a shared mission rather than an existential crisis. If we communicate better with the public about how supply chains evolve, we could build trust and patience for the long transition away from the Made-in-China recipe for consumer happiness. 

It’s Not Only an American Issue

The EU faces a similar mix of moderate but stubborn inflation expectations, weak job markets, and tepid GDP growth. Even China, for all its deflationary productivity, struggles to offer citizens a believable path to middle-class prosperity. The common thread is that free trade is fading and taking global economic efficiency down with it. Industrial policy and managed trade have a cost, and we’re all paying it. 

But there is a silver lining. The move to regional or national sourcing and production should eventually mean:

• shorter, less risky supply chains 
• more sustainable, localized consumer products, and  
• new jobs building and managing modern factory networks. 
   

The process could take a generation to complete and will involve huge amounts of robotic automation as well as new materials and product designs, but this is more good news than bad. Tech talent in countries driving the modernization of manufacturing (China, India, Vietnam) leads the US and Europe, but the skills are transferrable and people who master them will make more money in all sectors, including homebuilding and healthcare.  

If people could see this path to middle-class prosperity with affordable lifestyles, good paying careers, and national pride perhaps they’d walk it. Many have voted this way – for Trump, Modi, Orban, Meloni – but without really understanding how it works. 

Populism Runs on a Naïve Grasp of Supply Chains

We ran a survey of 14,000 consumers in December 2025 to see how people feel about inflation, product availability, and the root causes of this affordability crisis. The big takeaway is that consumers are more forgiving of higher prices or product shortages if they understand why they happen. Many are also willing to help. In fact, nearly half say they would be at least somewhat likely to pay more for products made closer to home.

Digging a little deeper into this data shows that many consumers are aware of supply chain tactics like outsourcing and automation, but generally without enough sophistication to connect the dots and understand how long it will take to “bring manufacturing home.” The notable exception being China, where first-hand familiarity with advanced manufacturing technology, including AI, is evident in consumer awareness levels above 40% for all tactics we tested.

Western consumers, it turns out, are also citizens who want both low prices and a degree of national pride. And, although they barely grasp the complex web of n-tier suppliers, technology, and capital investment required, they do care about national supply chain sovereignty.

Communications Should Engage the Public in Supply Chain Reinvention

In our report analyzing this data, we recommend operations-centric marketing and packaging tactics to reward supply chain-aware consumers with savings in exchange for bulk buys, subscribe-and-save deals, or narrow SKU assortments. One CSCO from a global consumer brands company rightly noted that these tactics cost money. Absolutely, and so does everything else in the long march toward regional, national, and local supply chains.  

The big takeaway is that people may be ready to engage with supply chains to save more money as consumers and earn more money as employees. Unfortunately, fewer than a third of F500 companies have dedicated supply chain communications specialists on staff, which means PR around this topic rarely connects the dots between popular desire for everything from local manufacturing jobs to sustainable sourcing, back to shoppers’ buying behavior. 

Better PR could get people to not only shop smarter, but also participate in the long, expensive rebuilding of supply chains within their national borders.