[JUDGE3]

How do you all feel about the "assembled in USA with global parts" thing?

I'm all USA. country kansas, 'nuff said

Iv'e bought 3 fairly expensive items recently with this patriotic label. I kinda like it, glad its supporting USA jobs but it just feels tainted for me.

I think its because i'm 61 and lived the good days when "made in the USA" meant the whole product. everything was heavy duty and long lasting and back then we were used to that. only way it should be!

only thing made in china then was fireworks.

i'm just so sick of sub standard product. seems everything is made to bare minimum standards. hate it. to have to be happy when a product "works out" is a crappy thing.

[dataway]

I'm glad an item is assembled in the USA ... but not so happy they are basically trying to leverage the use of the flag symbol to fool some people into thinking "Made in USA".

I try pretty hard to get what I can made in the US .. but sometimes the cost/benefit analysis just doesn't work out. I just bought some components for a small CNC machine I am building ... Chinese ... cost $39 (short ball screw kit). The absolute cheapest US made equivalent I could find was in the $400 range, but the typical was more like $1000 (priced at McMaster). Yes the US items had slightly better specs, and most certainly would perform better and longer in an production environment ... but jeez ... 20X more money? And the Chinese kit was pretty impressive quality for the price.

Certain things I insist on US made ... fasteners, welding supplies, hand tools, inspection and measuring equipment (Japanese allowed). I shoot for Taiwanese machine tool accessories ... because they make some very fine tools for decent cost. Prefer US made cutting tools.

I'm a believer in global trade ... but not a supporter of our huge trade imbalance with China, or the co-opting of our industrial might by deferring most of our manufacturing to China.

[694.1]

What you guys said.

[poncho-mike]

It's not nearly as open and shut as you might think. I work in design engineering, so I have experience with the regulations.

Most companies will simply state that a product is assembled in the US, or some are more specific and state that the product is assembled in the US with US and non-US made components. In order to claim a product is "Made in the USA", you have to be able to provide documentation on demand to identify the sourcing for every component. That means you also have to require your suppliers to document their sources.
Most supply chains find it isn't worth the effort to insure domestic traceability, so they simply use one of the statements above.

I work for a company that makes industrial power distribution equipment. Pretty much 100% of the metal enclosure is manufactured in the US, but it is possible some of the suppliers used recycled steel that could have come from anywhere. The circuit boards and electronic components may come from the USA, China, Japan, or Mexico. The transformers are made in the US, but the copper and steel could have come from anywhere. So in today's global economy, it's pretty hard to say something is 100% made in the USA, and costly to be able to document it as 100% domestically sourced.

When these laws first came out, I was working for a different company. That employer wanted to be able to state that XX% of the content was from US sources. It was a paperwork nightmare, and the simple solution was to go with a generic "Assembled in . . . ." statement. There was all kind of pushback from suppliers who didn't fully understand how to comply with the law. Changing to the generic statement pretty much defeated the intent, but it would have been a compliance nightmare and drove up costs to define a percentage of domestic content.

There are some industries, mainly defense related, that may have more stringent sourcing requirements. But it definitely drives up costs. Incidentally, Restrictions on Hazardous Materials (RoHS) regulations are also a pain to deal with, but have no out if you're dealing with European countries.

[72projectbird]

To me, if it's assembled in USA using cheap as possible sourced materials, with workers making minimum wage on an assembly line, it's no different than just buying foreign crap.

The only good thing out of it is American workers are being paid, but again, it's nothing more than a minimum wage job with a high turnover rate. It doesn't exactly scream American Pride