On Thursday, November 20th, GE Appliances announced that they have signed a new contract worth over 150 million USD with American suppliers to move their production line from China to Kentucky, USA.
According to the Associated Press, GE Appliances was acquired by a Chinese home appliance company, Haier Group, in 2016. The decision of their American subsidiary to “bring back” their production lines from China and Mexico to the US carries significant symbolic meaning against the backdrop of US-China trade relations and supply chain restructuring.
GE Appliances plans to relocate the production of washing machines and dryers from China to their Appliances Park factory in Louisville, Kentucky, expecting to boost the development of the US supply chain and create approximately 800 new jobs.
The company intends to invest 490 million USD in the factory’s transformation to produce a washer/dryer combo and a series of drum washers. Production is set to commence in early 2027, and upon completion of the project, the production area for laundry care products will be equivalent to 33 football fields.
With over 150 million USD in new supplier contracts, GE Appliances’ spending on procuring components and raw materials for washer and dryer production reflects their commitment. The company noted that if sales of washers and dryers in the US increase, the contract amount may also rise.
Currently, the company has more than 6,500 suppliers in the US, with an annual procurement amount of 4.6 billion USD, representing a 69% increase in spending and a 58% growth in the number of suppliers since 2019.
These supplier contracts cover 10 states, with contract amounts ranging from 330,000 USD to 41 million USD, involving critical production processes such as plastics, castings, steel, aluminum, and more. The suppliers range from large corporations like US Steel to small family-owned businesses. The new contracts will increase the company’s annual spending on US suppliers by 3.3%.
President Trump is attempting to attract factories back to the US by imposing import tariffs on foreign goods.
Lee Lagomarcino, Vice President of GE Appliances, stated that the decision to shift the supply chain from China to the US is not only due to tariff considerations but also factors such as shortening delivery cycles, reducing transportation costs, facilitating supplier collaboration, and ultimately better serving customers.
The new supplier contracts encompass states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Alabama, and California, with the contract amount for Kentucky exceeding 40 million USD, making it the state with the highest investment.
According to the company, these contracts are the initial results of their five-year, 3 billion USD strategy aimed at strengthening their manufacturing in the US, bringing some production back to the US, and creating over 1,000 job opportunities.