Is there a truely "Made in America"? I think we will find that alot of parts to everything are made overseas and assembled here.
And vice versa, and vice versa, and vice versa. There's not just parts and final assembly. There's parts which go into making those parts, and then there's parts which go into making THOSE parts. The first "part maker" in the chain calls what comes from his supplier "raw materials". Of course, that raw materials supplier calls the stuff going out "finished product", and they too have a "raw materials supplier".
I work for a steel company, which is a middle cog in this chain. That's all we are. We sell in America. We sell overseas. Sometimes we sell to overseas companies who will manufacture parts for American products. Sometimes we sell to American companies who will manufacture parts for foreign products.
For instance, lets say you're tracing the making of, say, a fuel injector. Each of the following could be completely different companies in different countries!
Mining --> purifying of ores --> steelmaker (melts (maybe several times) and pre-forges)--> forger/hot rolling --> heat treater --> rough machining company --> finish machinging company --> assembly of sub-part --> assembly of bigger sub-part --> assembly of part --> finally it goes to the automaker who puts it in a car.
During this, of course, each of those steps can be broken down into sub-steps. And that company may outsource one or several of those to yet more companies!
It's not at all unusual, before a final part is made, for it to have been through 20 different companies before the Ford's of the world finally put it into an automobile. The full automobile, with all parts, probably supports jobs in over 100 different countries. It's a global marketplace. "Made in America" has no real meaning. There sure are differences in how many American jobs you are supporting with different products. But it's quite common for "Made in Mexico" to supply as many or more American jobs as "Made in America". This is especially true of the larger, more complicated items like cars, airplanes, and such.
IMO, it's good to want to support American jobs, but focusing on the location of final assembly gets you nowhere towards your goal. If you really want to do this, you need to dig deeper, and that ain't real easy to do.
