Imported products sold in the United States, from clothing to cars, contain far more U.S. parts or other value, and support significantly more American jobs than consumers or policymakers realize, according to a new report prepared for the National Retail Federation.
Obviously the global economy is not as black-and-white as it’s often portrayed. For example, “foreign” car manufacturer Toyota claims to have created 365,000 jobs in the U.S. as of 2012. “Made in America” automotive can be particularly fuzzy when you consider the number of assembly plants and OEM suppliers who participate in the development and production of vehicles sold on American soil.
“This report looks at retailers’ worldwide sourcing of merchandise not just as a global supply chain but as a global value chain,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in a press release. “It shows the value added at each step along the way, not just in manufacturing but from the initial concept to the finished product. Even in a product that says ‘Made in China,’ much of what goes into that product is ‘Made in America.’ That means millions of American jobs for American workers regardless of what the label might say.”
In fact, Cars.com’s American-Made Index rates vehicles built and bought in the U.S. Factors include sales, where the car’s parts come from and whether the car is assembled in the U.S. The index disqualifies models with a domestic parts content rating below 75 percent, models built exclusively outside the U.S., or models soon to be discontinued without a U.S.-built successor.
In the latest index, the Ford FUnit of capacitance. The basic unit of a measure of a capacitor. A capacitor charged to 1 volt with a charge of 1 coulombA coulomb is the unit of electric charge. It is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.1 coulomb is the amount of electric charge transported by a current of 1 ampere in 1 second. It can also be defined in terms of capacitance and voltage, where one coulomb is defined as one farad of capacitance times one volt of electric potential difference. would have a capacitance of 1 farad. 1 microF = .000001 Farads.-150 was the number one most American-made vehicle, but close on its heels was the Toyota Camry — a vehicle model that held the number one slot for the four years prior. In fact, the top ten slots were evenly split between domestic brands (including Ford, Dodge, Chevrolet, GMC and Buick), and foreign carmakers Toyota and Honda. According to an Editor’s Note included with the Cars.com index:
In today’s global economy, there’s no easy way to determine just how American a car is. Many cars built in the U.S., for example, are assembled using parts that come from elsewhere. Some cars assembled in the U.S. from largely American-made parts don’t sell well, meaning fewer Americans are employed to build them. Cars.com’s American-Made Index recognizes cars that are built here, have a high percentage of domestic parts and are bought in large numbers by American consumers.
And as NRF points out, the labeling system for products from textiles to toys can also be opaque — failing to account for American added value.
