Why Buy American-Made Products?
How important is it to buy products made in America? We hear the phrase all the time, “Buy American Made Products”. And we have laws and conditions that must be met before a product can certify correctly that it is “Made in USA”.
It is against the law, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, to claim that your product is American made if in fact it is an imported product. There are penalties if someone has made a false claim.
But why should we buy American made?
Be a Healthy Consumer
The USA has lots of laws about manufacturing things. These laws guarantee that the product that you are buying doesn’t contain materials that are not allowed in the manufacturing process. Routine testing by the Consumer Product Safety Commission tests for things not allowed to be in products. Other countries are not as careful in their manufacturing process.
That is why imported children’s toys are occasionally found to have lead-based paint. This is a no-no. American-made children’s toys would be found not to use lead-based paint. If the product packaging says “Made in USA” you can be pretty sure that the manufacturing process has been overseen such that children’s toys are safe to use and safe to chew on.
Healthy for the Environment
The Environmental Protection Agency oversees the manufacturing of products made in the USA. If you buy American, you can be pretty sure that the manufacturer had to prevent pollution and pass other standards in the making of the product.
Manufacturers in many other countries do not have to meet these same standards and are thus often polluting the environment in making their products. Solar Panels and HVAC systems made in the USA would be good purchases because they meet the USA’s standards for manufacturing.
Also, manufacturers in other countries exploit their workers in manufacturing goods for export (our imports). Their employees are often subject to poor working conditions and much lower wages than would be found in the USA.
The Fair Labor Standards Act ensures that our USA manufacturers conform to minimum wage standards and fair working conditions. We do not allow child labor in most all our manufacturing.
Healthy for the Economy
It is healthiest for our economy if we buy American. Our money stays here and re-circulates. It would be fairly healthy, from just an economic standpoint, if our imports just equaled our exports in money value.
However, that is not presently the case. For the last quite a few years, our imports have exceeded our exports. We have run a negative trade balance.
A healthy economy is one that circulates money freely without trade imbalances. It survives without any assistance from outside the country. An unhealthy economy is one that depends on outside countries for some kind of assistance, perhaps aid or foreign trade.
To the extent that the USA has a trade imbalance, it is an unhealthy economy. In the long run It is an unsustainable situation. It is true there are a few things that we need to buy from other countries. But we could have a balanced trade picture and consequently a healthy economy.
