What does made in the U.S.A. mean?

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I've known for a while that many American made products are not 100% sourced in the U.S., but many questions about specifics arose after my latest bass head purchase.  There is a lot of legalese in terms like Made in the USA, Assembled in the USA, American Made, 100% American Made, and Designed in the USA.  Apparently automakers are the only ones legally required to define the percentage of domestically aquired parts.  If other products make the claim, they are subject to the same regulations.  With cars it's really tricky.  Toyota and Nissan (as well as others) have plants in the U.S. and employ union labor.  I've worked at the GM Assembly Plant in Arlington, TX.  Semi trucks with Mexican license plates come in full and leave empty to make those vehicles in America.  My American made Dodge came with Canadian Goodyears on it.  A few years ago, a Toyota Sienna mini-van was made of 90% domestically aquired parts.  A Ford Mustang, 60%.  In this case buying American means buying Toyota?  To add more confusion, buying a Volkswagen is about as American made, as far as parts and labor, as one can get.  Sometimes the limitations are geographic with guitars.  Rosewood can't be grown in the U.S. (possibly Hawaii).  You just wouldn't expect to see a Rosewood or Mahogany tree growing in an Iowa corn field, so the idea of an American Standard Strat with Brazilian Rosewood fretboard doesn't seem odd, or an LP Standard with Honduran or African Mahogany.
 
Again, my latest Carvin bass head purchase sparked this curiousity.  It's "Made in the USA."  That was a source of pride, but if it were absurdly expensive or didn't sound good, no go.  Anywho, I'm tinkering around with it and was considering a tube swap as a mod.  To my surprise, the biggest indicator on my new 'Made in the USA" bass head's tube was the word "China."  Now, I know Carvin is not in the tube making business and most of the ones out there are Chinese or Eastern European in origin.  Even if they insisted on Made in the USA tubes, downstream their tube supplier might make their hypothetical American made tubes with Chinese metal and Mexican glass.  Who knows?

The legal definition of "Made in the USA" according to Wiki says it must be 75% of the manufacturing costs must occur here or have been substantially transformed here last in the manufacturing process.  Also, the idea (intellectual property) is a factor.  Designed in the USA........?

 

[erogenousjones17]

My neighbour's car had a bumper sticker that read "If you love this country, buy domestic." There are a few things wrong with this picture:

1) I live in Canada, and "this country" obviously referred to our neighbours to the south (the sticker was red, white and blue and everything)
2) His "domestic" was a Mexican-built Chrysler PT Cruiser
3) I drive an evil, "imported" Toyota Corolla...built in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

It's called globalization, my friends. Ain't it grand?  :icon_scratch:

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I think Globalization would be great, but it seems everything is coming from one place.  China.

 

[-CB-]

Hey I've got some specialized radio gear here that was MADE IN ENGLAND, and its some of the best stuff out there - no back seat in quality (unlike the Brit cars.... which are legendary).

Lookit... Gibson says "Made in USA",  and you think sure... the mahogany came from Central America, the Rosewood came from India, the lacquer was mixed up fresh in Indonesia last month, the MOP inlay was gotten from Singapore, the knobs and other plastic stuff was made in China, the pots were made in China, the frets were made in Detroit... ahem... etc etc

 

[Dan025]

well i beleive in buying domestic but yes domestic is a confusing concept now. i love classic GM cars and they were the best at one point but if i bought "american" today it would be a ford. hondas were better 10 years ago when they were simple. toyota made a good car but i think there are using engines that are too small for full sized cars and the suzuki stuff that gm and toyota sell as there own products are crap.
they do the same in japan honda even sell suzuki crap and toyota sells gm crap.

globalization or not the problems started when big companies stoped pushing technology into the future as well as building practical products that consumers can afford and want to buy. instead they want to be NOT WORSE than the other guy. they ALL do the absolute minimum to stay on par with the competition. and since they are all profit driven they figure out they can do that in china and make even more profits by not doing anything significant. moving backwards into the future is the mentallity of huge companies but the small ones can't be competative and put out a great product. it is sickening.

 

[whyachi]

I buy cars the only way I know to be truly American. I trade my American cash money to another American for their used perfectly good used car.

I know where my money goes. ..Probably to WalMart for Chinese jeans and DVDs as soon as I drive off, now that I think about it.

 

[tubby.twins]

3) I drive an evil, "imported" Toyota Corolla...built in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

I know how that goes.  Both of my "Japanese" cars were designed and built somewhere in North America.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Irony of ironies, some Hondas are imported into Japan.

 

[Dan025]

Irony of ironies, some Hondas are imported into Japan.

acura is not native to japan even though it is a branch of honda. acura is geared toward the american buyer. but you do see the occasional acura in japan and i don't mean the ones sold as a honda like the integras were.

the most unusual thing i saw over there as far as cars go was the toyota cavaleir. yes toyota sells the chevy cavaleir as a toyota. same chevy body and same chevy engine. toyota makes good all around small cars and chevy makes a fairly durable small car that has no style, a crappy interior, too much cheap plastic that is just ugly. it drives bad, has an inferior steering system and the rear suspension sucks. all it has going for it is that it is fairly reliable and is good on gas. why would toyota want to import that and sell it under it's own brand? why?

when the japanese started building cars they did it like the europeans, a peoples car. but the japanese could build a small car that didn't catch fire like the european cars did. meanwhile the american auto industry was ran by the advertisers. the american cars weren't badly engineered well not at first, but after a while gm got used to telling america what they want rather than asking. to this day gm and chrystler can't build cars that satisfy americans. they think teaming up with the foreign car companies will fix there problems. what they need to do is fire everyone and start over. then they need to start up the steel industry all over again and we'd be in good shape. americans need to get used to working for there dollar again and stop telling there kids they need college and a white collar job. we can't sustain an economy without skilled semi skilled and unskilled labor. we got rid of much of our industry and created more pencil pusher jobs and gave them to flaming incompetants.

if americans don't get paid to make steel and to make american cars and other products how are they getting the money to buy the products. companies might be saving a dolar when they go oversees but when the job market falls out as a result how can they profit from it?

 

[tfarny]

As far as guitars go, I don't think it's confusing at all - made in the USA means CNCed and assembled in the USA. Nobody thinks it means the materials originated the USA.

My personal globalization favorite is "japanese wine" -in Japan you are allowed to sell wine as "Japanese" as long as 10% of the bottle or something like that contains wine made from Japanese grapes - the other 90% comes on a container ship from Chile or somewhere and gets blended and bottled "in japan". Japanese are more into "buy domestic" than Americans are.

As for cars, they are all from global corporations only loosely tied to their original country. Trying to "buy American" is just a recipe for a migraine.

 

[OzziePete]

Same dilemma exists in Australia too. Lots of stuff made in China. Before that, lots were made in Korea or Japan. Prices keeps going up, perceived quality appears to be going down and we all know that it is costing LESS to make,so who's making the money? :icon_scratch:

Like the USA, stuff that's Made in Australia more likely means designed, and parts assembled. Not the whole process.

 

[blue313]

3) I drive an evil, "imported" Toyota Corolla...built in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

I know how that goes.  Both of my "Japanese" cars were designed and built somewhere in North America.

Same here.  My Nissan was built in Tenessee.

 

[Return of Guitlouie]

I trade my American cash money to another American for their used perfectly good used car.

I hear ya, buddy.  I'm almost forty and I have never bought a new car in my life, nor do I plan to.

 

[erogenousjones17]

I trade my American cash money to another American for their used perfectly good used car.

I hear ya, buddy.  I'm almost forty and I have never bought a new car in my life, nor do I plan to.

Ain't no shame in a used car.  :icon_thumright:

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

My brother lives in Canada, but we grew up American.  One time he was crossing the border to do some shows in Boston, and the US Border agents gave him a hard time because he had a box of his CDs to sell at the gig, but they weren't labled "Made in Canada."  My brother pointed out that he actually wrote and recorded the music while living in the US, and only recently ran off a batch of copies for his upcoming show, so in fact the music itself was indeed Made In the USA.  The border agent was not amused with his logic, but let him go with a promise to stick on country of origin labels before he sold the discs.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Come to think of it, that sticker which W includes with a neck, with the turtle and 'Made in U.S.A.'... They sent some of those to Fernando in Brazil, to Wana in Australia, to Mayfly in the U.K., to me in Belgium, and to countless others. Do you guys apply those? If you assemble your guitar in your country, is it still 'Made in U.S.A.? In the documents that came with some networking equipment a while ago, I ran into a statement along the lines of 'Assembled in the U.S.A. using components produced in Singapore using raw materials originating in China, Vietnam and...' While being pretty complete and hopefully accurate, it's not something you'd put on the headstock of a guitar...

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

I have my 'Made in the U.S.A' sticker on my warmoth, and every time a say that I put it together myself everyone points out the sticker  :icon_tongue: .

I suppose If you're really technical, My guitar is made in the U.S.A, India, China and Japan, but I don't think i'll be putting a 'Sourced From _, _, _' sticker on my warmoth. I think a new sticker should be made; "Made On Earth', That'd tie up these loose ends.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

FWIW, my original post was not bagging on W or anyone, just the confusing semantical nature of country of origin designations.  It's like the phrases "Organic, Natural, or Green."  There's no telling what those mean but only exist to make one feel warm and fuzzy.

 

[big bob]

I label all my builds "Fat Free"

 

[ByteFrenzy]

FWIW, my original post was not bagging on W or anyone, just the confusing semantical nature of country of origin designations.  It's like the phrases "Organic, Natural, or Green."  There's no telling what those mean but only exist to make one feel warm and fuzzy.

That's exactly how I understood it. There are lots of terms that don't really mean what they litterally say, or don' t really mean anything at all. 'Biological', 'Light', 'Life Long Warranty'... The grand award in my eyes is for 'ASAP'. 'As soon as possible' is NOT synonomous with 'Drop everything and do it Right Now'. Our culture, and our language with it, is suffering from severe semantic erosion.