Manufacturing Around the World

In June 2016 Haier, the Chinese appliance maker from Qingdao, completed its purchase of GE Appliances for about $5.6 billion and left almost everything where it was. The headquarters stayed at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky; the US management stayed in place; the plants kept running (company, reported). Haier had tried to enter the American market twice before. In 2000 it opened a refrigerator plant at Camden, South Carolina, which gave it a US address but not a mainstream position. In 2005 it offered about $1.28 billion for Maytag with private-equity partners and withdrew when Whirlpool bid more; Whirlpool, which could close overlapping plants, could afford to pay more for the target than a newcomer with one plant could (reported). GE Appliances became available because the Justice Department had blocked its sale to Electrolux in 2015 (Chapter 11). Haier had almost no US share in cooking appliances, so its bid raised no competition objection, and it could pay more than Electrolux had agreed to.

What it bought was what Camden could not provide: a network of US plants, retail and builder relationships and a brand ladder from Hotpoint to Monogram. Large appliances are bulky and cheap to damage, and they are made near the people who buy them; buying a network was the only fast way to have one. GE Appliances now runs 11 US manufacturing plants (company). On 13 August 2025 it announced more than $3 billion of investment over five years, with 1,000 new jobs across Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, to move refrigerator, gas-range and water-heater production from China and Mexico to the United States, including a $490 million laundry project at Louisville with 800 jobs and production scheduled for early 2027 (company). Its chief executive, Kevin Nolan, said tariffs had served as an accelerant, not the driving factor, and that "these tariffs could go away tomorrow, and once we make these decisions, we don't back off" (as reported). The jobs were pledged, not yet hired. But in the first nine months of 2026 GE Appliances gained share in core appliances while Whirlpool, its American rival, reported a third-quarter loss (company).

The case overturns an assumption many Americans made about Chinese ownership: that it would move production to China. The Chinese owner made more in Kentucky. Ownership and footprint turned out to be separate decisions, and the footprint followed the product's economics and the tariff wall, not the nationality of the shareholder.