‘Made in USA’ gets boost from tar­iffs

Forty-one years ago, when Sara Irvani’s grand­father launched a foot­wear com­pany in Buford, Geor­gia, half the nation’s shoes were made in Amer­ica.

Today, the fig­ure is down to 1%. “From the late 1890s through the 1970s or so, there had actu­ally been shoe man­u­fac­tur­ing in Buford,” Irvani said.

Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial tar­iff cam­paign has stirred con­ver­sa­tion, debate, hope and des­pair about the state of Amer­ican man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Trump says he is rais­ing import taxes partly in the hope of spark­ing a man­u­fac­tur­ing revival and inspir­ing con­sumers to buy Amer­ican.

Buy Amer­ican is a concept as old as the nation. Right now, though, the Buy Amer­ican move­ment faces stiff head­winds. Infla­tion has raised prices dra­mat­ic­ally over the past five years, mak­ing cheap imports look all the more appeal­ing.

Most Amer­ic­ans say they prefer Amer­ican-made products, when they can find them, accord­ing to an Octo­ber sur­vey by Morn­ing Con­sult for the Alli­ance for Amer­ican Man­u­fac­tur­ing.

But they may not be look­ing very hard: Gal­lup polling sug­gests only about 40% of Amer­ic­ans con­sist­ently know where their toast­ers and Tshirts are made.

Amer­ican man­u­fac­tur­ers want atti­tudes to change.

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