General Motors Co. will shift production of the Buick Envision from China to Kansas in the Detroit automaker’s latest reshoring move under President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Production of the next-generation compact SUV is slated for 2028 at the Fairfax Assembly & Stamping plant in Kansas City, GM confirmed Thursday.
“Tariffs work,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in an email.
GM announced the bulk of its onshoring efforts in June when it unveiled plans to invest $4 billion to move production from Mexico to three plants in the United States, including the shuttered Orion Assembly in Metro Detroit.
“This decision further strengthens GM’s domestic manufacturing footprint and supports U.S. jobs, building on $5.5 billion in new investments announced across our U.S. manufacturing sites in the last year,” according to a GM statement emailed by spokesperson Kevin Kelly.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said moving Envision production to Kansas likely won’t save GM “a ton” in terms of tariffs and other import expenses, but “they get scale.”
“Their supply chain, they’ve handled magnificently over the last 12 months given the tariffs,” Ives said. “And they’re strategically looking at every model to see where it should be built and what’s the most efficient. I think this is a smart move to onshore it.”
“They could build out their footprint over the coming years, and it’s not just going to be this model,” Ives later added. “They’ll do this with others. It’s part of a brick-by-brick strategy.”
Analysts last year cautioned that the Buick brand was particularly vulnerable to tariffs. Buick in 2024 sold more than 157,000 vehicles in the United States that were imported from South Korea and China — almost 86% of its 2024 U.S. deliveries.
The Enclave is the only Buick model currently made in the United States. The three-row SUV is produced at the Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant.
The Envision announcement means more work at GM’s underutilized Kansas assembly plant, where roughly 900 employees were laid off indefinitely in October because of uncertainty around the reopening of a second shift.
GM in 2024 ended production of the Chevrolet Malibu sedan at Fairfax, and in 2025 stopped making the Cadillac XT4 small SUV there.
The company in June announced plans to bring the popular Chevrolet Equinox small SUV to Fairfax as part of its reshoring plan to limit the company’s losses to tariffs, but production is not slated to begin until next year.
UAW Local 31 President Dontay Wilson said Fairfax employees are eager to go back to work, regardless of the vehicle model, “as soon as humanly possible.”
“If GM says they’ll start making skateboards and make a profit, we’ll do that here,” Wilson said.
Although U.S. Buick sales have struggled in the past thanks to what was a sedan-heavy fleet and a reputation as a vehicle for old people, Buick’s move toward SUVs, along with a redesign of its fleet and logo, appear to be helping the brand. Sales were up 8% in 2025 compared to 2024.
Envision sales fared worse in the United States, with about 42,000 deliveries last year compared to more than 47,000 in 2024.
GM will continue to make Envisions in China to be sold in that country and elsewhere globally. Buick’s history there dates to the 1910s and 1920s, when even emperors ranked among its customers. GM began manufacturing Buicks there in 1998 through a joint venture with SAIC.
Buick’s upscale reputation in China helped spare the brand over Pontiac during GM’s 2009 bankruptcy.
