Is manufacturing building a comeback? For Marketplace, I'm Novosafo and for David Brancaccio.

We learned yesterday that business activity in the U.S. picked up in August, led by a big advance in the manufacturing sector, which had been in a slump but recorded its strongest growth in orders in 18 months.

The question now, is that turnaround a short-term blip or a new trend?

Marketplace of Sibri Beneshaw takes a look.

Things really were looking up this month for manufacturing,

according to an early read of S&P's purchasing managers index.

That is basically a survey of businesses.

Employment surged, production surged.

This is the best performance that we've got in the U.S. since that pandemic growth spurt in

2022.

Chris Williamson is chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Now, a lot of this manufacturing bump has to do with tariffs,

specifically trying to avoid them by stockpiling. Whether it's cars or chemicals or plastics,

all these industries are sucking in these imports while they've got them and building stuff.

And here is where the outlook gets a little murkier.

On the one hand, some manufacturers say they expect more demand because the imports they

compete with are getting more expensive.

On the other hand, a lot of manufacturers are also importers, and imports are getting

more expensive.

Liam Burke is managing directorate B. Riley Securities.

We're going to have an increase in input costs.

Now, how that's divided between the importer, the buyer, and the customer is still way up in the air.

...