Following the recent scares over the safety of imports from China, a journalist finds out just how difficult it is to avoid “Made in China” items in the local stores in South Dakota:
The quest began in the J.C. Penney shoe department. We soon found out this was going to be no easy task: Adidas, made in China; Sketchers, made in China; Reebok, made in China or Indonesia.
We finally found some New Balance shoes and I recalled reading that the company still makes some running shoes in the United States. The first few said “Made in China,” but we then spotted three adult styles marked “Made in the USA of imported materials.” [Full text]
In a similar effort, business journalist Sara Bongiorni wrote a book called “A Year Without ‘Made in China
In “A Year Without ‘Made in China,”‘ (Wiley, $24.95) Bongiorni tells how she and her family found that such formerly simple acts as finding new shoes, buying a birthday toy and fixing a drawer became ordeals without the Asian giant.
Bongiorni takes pains to say she does not have a protectionist agenda and, despite the occasional worry about the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas factories, she has nothing against China. Her goal was simply to make Americans aware of how deeply tied they are to the international trading system. [Full text]
