Quote:
Originally Posted by cjrjck
Buying American can be a very slippery slope nowadays. Not as simple as it once was. For instance, how is "American made" defined? Some things are made in America by foreign companies. Take Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep products. They are owned by the Stellantis NV conglomerate, a Netherlands company. You might say that is okay as long as many of the jobs are here in the United States. Then you have Toyota who makes many of its vehicles in the United States. Same thing. But what about profits staying here? You might then argue we should buy a Ford instead. Then some will say do you know how many vehicles sold by Ford (and GM) that are made in Mexico or Canada? The profits stay here but the jobs are elsewhere. Is that better? I don't know. Then you have so many products made here in America by foreign and domestic companies that are actually just assembled here of mostly imported parts. Conversely, there are many products made or assembled elsewhere with American parts in factories owned by American companies. How does that factor in? Some jobs exist here to make the parts and of course the profits are shared by investors and pension funds in the United States even though the products are foreign made. It's a convoluted, complex mess trying to figure out how to best support this nation with our spending habits.
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I think the main thing is providing jobs for American workers. Those American workers pay taxes and buy things. Their salaries help many others keep working. The big exception is things like computer chips where companies can control the supply or use the chips to spy on us for nefarious purposes, as with China. We also need to be concerned about having to buy crucial minerals and such from countries like China. Buying American, however, is often more expensive. Also, buying overseas products like fruit and flowers does keep people working in those countries. That’s for the good of humanity. They might even buy an American product on occasion.