Manufacturing returning to US/Canada/UK?

[RobertInOntario]

I popped into my LHS yesterday to buy a few Atlas accessories and the guy at the shop said that they had run out. He said had actually just been on the phone with their Atlas rep who said they were having supply problems from their plant in China. The rep said that the costs for manufacturing in China were getting so high (due to some recent tariffs or something to that effect) and that it is no longer really economical to manufacture products overseas. There is a very good chance that this type of manufacturing could return to the U.S.

The guy at the LHS also said that the prices would probably not increase (if manufacturing returned to North America) because the tariffs/importing costs, supply & delay problems at the Chinese factories, and the cost of shipping were already driving up the prices of the overseas-produced items.

Hopefully, similar things will happen with Canada and the U.K. I mainly model British trains, so I have a concern here... Hornby and Bachmann are the two main suppliers of British 00 model trains and I think they're having similar issues with their China-made products. I do know of one British supplier though -- Dapol -- who mainly makes N-scale British models as well as a few (but possibly on the rise) 00 models that is still based in the UK. I think their might be 1-2 other smaller British model companies (Ixion Model Railways Ltd?) that still manufacture in the UK?

Has anyone else run into similar issues at their LHS or heard similar things?

Thanks,