The State Of ‘made In The Usa’ Products
Levi’s jeans. Rawlings baseballs. Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
These are just a few products synonymous with America that are manufactured in other countries. That’s because the only thing more American than jeans, baseballs, and motorcycles is maximizing profits and undercutting competitors by using cheaper foreign labor and materials.
The FTC requires a product advertised as “Made in USA” to be “all or virtually all” produced in the US, although companies can list caveats (e.g., “Couch assembled in USA from Italian leather and Mexican frame”). There are significant obstacles for products to get made 100% in the only country that has Waffle House:
- The US abides by 14 free trade agreements with 20 countries that either reduce or eliminate tariffs and shorten supply chains, making production abroad significantly cheaper.
- Per the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 11% of the value of US exports in 2021 came from inputs from other countries.
Have tariffs helped? President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff plan in April 2025 was designed to reinvigorate American production. The US did strike some trade deals in which other countries committed to investing in the US—but any impact could take years to materialize. In the meantime, the US Congress Joint Economic Committee found in February that the US lost 108,000 manufacturing jobs during the first year of Trump’s second term.—DL
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