The Reshoring Paradox: Political Incentives, Business Interests, and the State Intervention in Clean Tech Global Supply Chains

China’s dominant position in key supply chain segments during an era of rising geopolitical tensions have sparked renewed concerns. Such concerns have amplified existing unease about import dependence particularly in markets for clean technologies—wind, solar, and storage. A central element of such political debates has been a common call for reshoring, that is the relocation of existing productive capacity within national borders. Against this background, this paper, first, provides the conceptual underpinnings on supply chain interventions by defining reshoring and distinguishing it from other types of economic policy. Second, it examines the frequency with which reshoring initiatives are being implemented in the clean tech domain by governments in countries that are central to the global energy transition—the European Union, Japan, and the United States. Third, the paper provides a theoretical explanation for what we call the reshoring paradox: the discrepancy between political rhetoric and policy implementation. We argue that the politics of reshoring are a function of two factors: the presence of durable assets that cannot easily be brought back to the domestic economy without incurring substantial losses, determining industry opposition to reshoring policies; and the absence of domestic industrial capabilities—firms and workers that have the productive capacity to benefit from reshoring policy—which makes active industry support for reshoring less likely.