SPOKANE, Wash. — A local company is hoping expanding its manufacturing in the U.S. will bring more jobs to Spokane.
For 50 years, Keytronic Corporation has been headquartered in Spokane and manufacturing various tech products.
Over the weekend, President Trump announced smartphones, laptops and other electronics would be exempt from his latest round of tariffs, but only temporarily.
The Trump Administration says one of its overall goals is to boost manufacturing in the U.S.
Keytronic, like many in the tech manufacturing industry, is working to navigate the rapidly changing landscape caused by the tariffs.
“It’s like you’re in some athletic event and you’re in the game, and the rules are changing as you’re actually playing. In fact, those rules are changing so dramatically and so quickly the refs can’t keep up,” said Keytronic CEO, Brett Larsen.
Even with some of its manufacturing sites in Mexico and China, the company is expanding its Arkansas facility to increase its overall U.S. manufacturing by about 40%.
Larsen said the move is to hopefully minimize the impact of any potential tariff on foreign products.
“There’s been a lot of geopolitical tension between us and China and logistics issues and all types of things where people have rethought maybe we need to near-source,” he said.
He said he hopes bringing more manufacturing jobs to Arkansas will also bring more corporate jobs to the Spokane office.
“Whether it be program management, sourcing, logistics, engineering, accounting, IT, all of those things will grow here as well in Spokane,” Larsen said.
Despite the push for domestic production, Larsen said it still makes sense for certain products to be manufactured overseas.
“There are certain parts that honestly will always be built better in a different location other than the U.S, and why wouldn’t we take advantage of that?” he said.
COPYRIGHT 2025 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
