Rebuilding North American Tooling: Risk, Resiliency, and a New Economic Model

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In the Center for Automotive Research’s latest white paper, Rebuilding North American Tooling: Risk, Resiliency, and a New Economic Model, we examine a foundational part of the automotive manufacturing ecosystem that is increasingly becoming a strategic concern.

Dies, molds, fixtures, jigs, machine tools, and related equipment are essential to launching and maintaining vehicle production. CAR estimates that a new vehicle program requires more than 2,100 different tools, while a major vehicle redesign requires more than 1,600.

Yet North America’s tooling industrial base has contracted significantly. Among the findings:

• U.S. metalworking machinery employment declined 46% between 1990 and 2026.
• U.S. metalworking machinery imports increased from $4.5 billion in 1989 to $16.0 billion in 2025.
• Imports now represent approximately 37% of U.S. domestic consumption, up from about 20% in 1989.
• The U.S. tool-and-die workforce declined 22.7% from 2009 to 2025, while the average worker age rose from 49 to 54.

The research finds that North America’s tooling challenge is structural—not cyclical. CAR’s interviews indicate that the region cannot launch, redesign, or refresh vehicles at scale without Chinese tooling, and that North America’s current tooling economic model is no longer competitive with China’s. Rebuilding capability will require changes in capital access, payment and sourcing practices, workforce development, technology investment, digitalization, and regional coordination.