This question comes from innocent curiosity, so please don’t read anything into it.
If someone is a proponent of “buy U.S. only,” are they, by extension, against U.S. exports (i.e., people of foreign countries buying our goods instead of their own)?
Just one of those questions that has always had me perplexed.
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My feeling is that you can be a nationalist without being an isolationist.
I think for the sake of the planet we should always try to find product as close to our own doors as possible. We personally try to find it locally, then within the state, then nationally, and then if it’s really really special and a perfect fit for our clientele we’ll bring it in. But we like to tell the story of the product. The further it comes from the less of a story there is to tell about it. We personally know our local artists (jewelry makers, authors, painters, photographers, potters, etc etc etc) when we go to the big national distributors we lose a bit of that when it comes to telling the ‘story’ about the person behind the item. Not to say it’s not necessary to offer those items but I personally get a bigger thrill knowing who’s pocket it’s going into.
My position is that it’s always best for Americans to buy American whenever possible. However, I do realize that A) it’s not always practical, B) due to globalization, most products contain the labor, parts, and/or technology of more than one country, and C) buying a Honda assembled in the US with US labor can be seen as more of a “patriotic” purchase than buying a GM manufactured overseas with foreign labor.
The question of import/export is tricky. For instance, one may think it’s good for the US economy as a whole to have US exports doing well . . . until one comes around to understanding that our exports are boosted when the dollar is weak. Considering how badly the dollar has been decimated–especially over the course of the past 3 decades–and the impact that has had on the purchasing power of the majority of Americans (real wages have been stagnant or declining for the majority of Americans since the 70s at the same time that the cost of all basics have been increasing), I would think that all informed citizens would see that there’s something terribly amiss when our exports doing well depends on living standards for the majority of us declining.
Also, when we talk about imports, we can’t forget that a sizable percentage of imports to the US are from US multinationals based overseas. Such a policy of trade worsens our trade deficit at the same time that it drives down US wages and standards of living by sending jobs overseas to be performed by people working starvation wages in “free-trade zones,” which are effectively sweatshops–no matter how much Nike, Disney, Wal-Mart, Old Navy, or any other corporation tries to spin it. (And the conditions in those sweatshops are more brutal for the young girls and women–who comprise the majority of the workforce–than the old American textile mills ever were.)
My overall policy is to buy ONLY what I need, to buy American whenever possible, and to purchase from small businesses whenever possible. The consumer culture is harmful (and unsustainable) in many ways, so I withhold as much as I can.
Piggybacking on Amy’s comment, Americans should buy American and Australians should buy Australian. And in China people should be buying Chinese. Few, if any, developed countries haven’t the ability to make everything they need but our corporate cut throats only care about their own profits and manipulate the markets in any way they can.
There’s nothing wrong with trade between nations when necessary but trade for trade’s sake is just plain wrong. And oh so wasteful.
Personally, I would love to see your buy local campaign extend into every nation in the world.
Moving on to what Julia wrote, why is it that American corporations (and some of the American people) feel it necessary that the US maintains some sort of advantage? It’s as if we were at war using trade as a weapon. And just as with military wars, millions of innocent people from both sides will pay the price.