Why NOT Make Olympic Uniforms in China? | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary

Why NOT Make Olympic Uniforms in China? | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Trade is not a competition between "our producers" and "their producers." In fact, U.S.-based firms benefit from collaborating with foreign firms by carving up the production process into distinct functions and processes that suit each location's efficiencies and strengths. Just as trade enables U.S. consumers to benefit from lower-cost final goods, globalization enables U.S. producers to benefit from access to lower-cost resources put into the manufacturing system. That enables them to compete more effectively at home and abroad.

In the typical production supply chain for consumer products, of which apparel production is a good example, the higher-value, pre-manufacturing activities like designing, engineering, and branding, and post-manufacturing activities like marketing, warehousing, transporting, and retailing happen in the United States, while the mostly lower-end manufacturing and assembly activities take place abroad. In the end, the final product is a collaborative effort, with the majority of the value accruing to U.S. workers, firms, and shareholders."

"With a very few exceptions, we simply don't cut and sew clothing much in the United States anymore.

But we design clothing here. We brand clothing here. We market and retail clothing here.

The apparel industry employs plenty of Americans, just not in the cutting and sewing operations that our parents and grandparents endured, working long hours for low wages."

"As our U.S. athletes march around the track at London's Olympic stadium wearing their Chinese-made uniforms and waving their Chinese-made American flags, there is a good chance that Chinese athletes will have arrived in London byU.S.-made aircraft, been trained on U.S.-designed and -engineered equipment, wearing U.S.-designed and -engineered footwear, many having perfected their skills using U.S.-created technology.

Our economic relationship with China, characterized by transnational supply chains and disaggregated production sharing, is more collaborative than competitive.

The nature of that relationship is inherently beneficial to American consumers and the economy at large; despite the alarmism emanating from the halls of power, trade is not a win-lose proposition."