Nike struggles to move production from Asia, difficulty with robots, WSJ says

With President Trump betting the threat of tariffs on low-cost countries will pressure American companies to bring manufacturing and jobs back to the U.S., many companies are turning to find ways to replace human workers with machines to save on labor costs, Jon Emont of The Wall Street Journal reports. A yearslong effort by Nike (NKE) to shift manufacturing to North America demonstrates the difficulties U.S. brands face to wean themselves off the flexible, low-cost contract manufacturers. The company’s attempts to create robots to make its shoes have had issues, with the robots struggling to handle the soft, squishy, stretchy parts integral to shoemaking. As a result, factory production has yet to become as automated as the company originally envisioned.