Here are the guidelines to the Buy American Challenge. Keep in mind these are just guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. These guidelines are just here to give people who want to begin buying American a place to start. Buying American can be confusing at first, so these guidelines are here to let people know that buying American doesn’t literally mean never buying anything not 100% made in U.S.A. That would be close to impossible to do in this day and age. But we should not let that keep us from trying to buy American whenever we can. Those taking the Buy American Challenge are committed to making a good-faith effort to buy American-made goods whenever an American-made version of what they are looking buy is available to them. The more diligent we can be about it, the better. So, here are the guidelines…
Buy American Challenge Guidelines:
- Buy only American-made finished products or American-grown or -raised foods.
- Items you buy may have parts, materials, and content that is not American-made, -grown, or -raised.
- Items you buy may be made in America by foreign-owned or multinational corporations.
- This challenge applies only to one’s own personal purchase decisions, not those made for households, groups, businesses, associations, or for one’s profession.
- Embarking on this challenge should be done willingly. No one should ever be obligated or forced into buying American-made.
- This challenge applies only to purchases you make going forward. Any puchases made in the past are in the past. The Buy American Challenge comes with a fresh start.
Exceptions to the Buy American Challenge Guidelines:
- One, of course, may buy a specific foreign-made product if a doctor, dentist, or other medical expert prescribes or recommends it. Example: If your dentist says you need a fancy foreign-made tooth brush, don’t worry about it, just get it.
- One may buy a specific foreign-made product if the item is simply not made, grown, or raised in the United States, and the item does not have a suitable replacement that is made, grown, or raised in the United States. Example 1: A lot of electronics just aren’t made in the U.S.A. anymore. If you can’t find what you want American-made, don’t worry about it. Example 2: There is no such thing as an American-grown banana. No worries, you can still eat them. Example 3: There is no American-made “Champagne” because to be called Champagne it must have been produced in the Champagne region of France. However, their are plenty of high quality American-made substitutes that are virtually identical to Champagne, but when they are made in America they are called “sparkling wine.” This is the kind of item that is not the same, but does have a suitable replacement.
- One may buy a specific foreign-made or -grown product if one is for some reason required to buy a specific item. Example: If your professor assigns a specific foreign-made calculator to use for a class, don’t worry about it, just get it.
- One may buy a foreign-made item if it is urgently needed, and time or proximity preclude one from buying an American-made version of the item. Example: You are really thirsty, and the only water available is bottled in France. Don’t worry about it, just get it.
- If one has a kinship with another country other than the U.S.A., he or she should feel free to buy items made, grown, or raised in that country as well. Example: Let’s say you have Irish heritage and like to buy things made in Ireland from time to time. Go right ahead continue doing that.
- One is allowed five “cheat items” (or more if you really need more). These are items that one may have an existing attachment to. If you simply can’t live without a specific foreign-made good, you can continue to purchase it. Example: Let’s say you just love Swiss chocolate. You can, of course, continue to buy your chocolate as often as you would like.
Again, these guidelines are just here to give people who are new to buying American a reasonable framework to start from. The majority of items we buy can be found made in the U.S.A. These soft rules are spelled out simply so people don’t throw in the towel when they are forced to buy foreign-made, which is going to happen from time to time in all likelihood.
Now that you know what the Buy American Challenge entails, I hope you will take the Buy American Challenge. Good luck on your buy American journey. Please come back to this website to share some of your buy American experiences.
By the way, any ideas or thoughts on these guidelines would be much appreciated.
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In looking through your guidelines for the challenge, I disagree with #2, as then the product is truly NOT Made in the USA. At least, it isn’t 100% made in the USA. If some of the parts are made in a foreign country, especially China, the product is only as good as the foreign part, as that is most likely the part that will fail. Or worse yet, that is the part that is dangerous, especially to children in the terms of lead and/or cadmium. Yet the consumer may not be aware of the danger, because it is labeled Made in the USA.
I have done a lot of research locating toys that are made exclusively in the USA. They can be found at my website, http://www.all-americantoys.com.
I am also in the process of doing the same with pet supplies(remember all the pets that were poisoned a couple of years ago by food processed in China?), and clothing. When that research is done, I will be offering those items on-line also.
Thanks for the comment. I can’t believe you are the first person to really question any of these guidelines. Thank you for posting.
I definitely hear what you are saying. Parts content is absolutely very important. Making parts creates jobs just like making finished products does, which is the ultimate goal. But there are two problems with making it a necessary part of a buy American program that is designed to catch on among Americans.
First, as a consumer, you can’t find information on what the parts content is of the things you buy. It is possible to find a percentage of domestic parts content for cars, but besides that, I don’t know of any resource that will tell you the parts content of the millions of goods out there being sold. It is impossible to expect people to stay on an American-made and 100% American parts content program when there is nowhere to get information about the parts content on products. On the other hand, if a product is finished in the USA, it probably says so right on the label or box, and people will be able to identify that at the point of purchase.
Second, there aren’t enough products left that actually are 100% American-made. Buying American-made is difficult enough as it is. However, it is still possible to stay on a buy American program curently. I have had success doing it for about a year now (I’ve favored American-made for years, but I really went cold turkey about a year ago). But if you eliminated all the goods that have any foreign content, there would be very little left to buy.
For a buy American movement to take place, the program better be doable and simple. Sadly, I don’t see how you could currently keep a program doable and simple if there was a parts content requirement. That’s why I have been encouraging people to have an acceptance of a little buy American ambiguity. We live in a time when you just can’t find things 100% American-made all the time anymore. So, we either adopt a tolerance for ambiguity, or we give up. To me, giving up is not an option. In order to get people buying American again, we need to overcome the apathy that is out there. Apathy was created by buying American becoming too difficult. We need to do everything possible to make it easy again.
Here are the key to building a successful buy American movement in my view.
We need to cast as wide a net as possible. We make a buy American program as easy as possible (which the Buy American Challenge guidelines were developed to do). We need to get lots of people doing it. Once a person is on a buy American program and getting educated about buying American, the next logical step is to start thinking about parts content and things like that. We start them on an easier buy American program, then they can adopt a more stringent program if they choose to over time. But we don’t want to scare them away the first day or before they even start.
What we really need are a few million people who are committed to buying American that can be communicated with and coordinated. Once we have that, we will then have the ability to encourage companies to use higher domestic parts content and make it worthwhile to do so.
Until we can do more along those lines, the best mechanism I know of to encourage purchasing American-made goods with higher parts content is the Made in USA Certified program, which is a private firm that certifies when companies make products that have all or virtually all of their core components manufactured or grown in the United States of America. Additionally, 100% of their assembly must be verified as conducted in the U.S.A. A label like this is something consumers can look for that would be simple. But without certification like this being widespread, it’s still not really doable for consumers (i.e. they would still have to buy lots of things not USA Certified). We need more of this.
Again, I made these guidelines to cast a wide net. I think we’ll get more people on buy American programs that include the consideration of parts content if we can get more people thinking about and trying to buy American in the first place. If we keep it as easy as possible in the beginning, I think we’ll be better off in the long-run. But make no mistake, I agree 100% that parts content is important. But for the average person, I think we need to ease them into buying American.
Thanks for the insightful comment.
Randy
when you find a site for pets please tell me. i love my animals and every day i buy their food i am afraid of the food poising them. i just now decided to do the challenge.
Lise,
Here are two great sites for pet supplies.
1) http://www.usamadepetsupplies.com/ – This sells all pet supplies made in the USA.
2) http://www.americansworking.com/pets.html – If you can’t find what you need at the website above, go to this website. It has a great list of all kinds of things made in America for your pet. It just isn’t all organized into one store.
Thanks Lise!
Randy
The data base at MadeByYankees.net specifies criteria that are important to some people when purchasing Made in USA products. Most products listed will have indicators for; American Owned Company, Raw Mat From USA, Mfg in USA, Assembly in USA, Green, Recycled, Organic, and Union Made. We weren’t able to get all the info for every product but we certainly do try. The database at this site has almost 3000 items in it. The blog, MadeByYankees.com has discussion about hard to find items and questionable items.
Randy,
I absolutely love your guidelines for buying American! I couldn’t agree more that in order to gain momentum for this movement you have to allow some flexibility to start out. I’ve come across this same problem in certain situations whereas it becomes overwhelming and sometimes downright impossible when I literally cannot find what I need, made American.
I also think that in the event you are buying something made in another country on purpose. For example, you want to buy an authentic mariachi outfit (not sure what you’d need it for), you would most likely want to buy one made in Mexico.
Your guidelines coincide with what I’m experiencing in my adventures in buying American. I was wondering for a moment if it was just me struggling at times.
I laughed when I read guideline #4 because I think of my youngest child who always points out to me when we’re at the store, “Mom, just because you want to buy American doesn’t mean I have to”. So, although I try to guide her in the right direction, sometimes I just have to take a deep breath and let her spend her money on an item made elsewhere.
Thanks for all the great work you’re doing and for keeping up on how my journey is going
Thanks for the feedback on the guidelines. I tried to make them as practical as I could. The “buy American only applies to you” guideline is really key. Others don’t always share your view on these kinds of things.
It’s like telling me I’m going to start eating vegan. I don’t think so! At least I’m not going to be told I have to do that. If it’s going to happen, I’m going to decide it for myself.
That is why the key to convicing others, I find, is to live buying made in USA strictly, and then talk about how the products are high quality (which they are), how it saves money (which it does, because you buy a lot less stuff), and how it makes you feel good that you are dooing your part to create jobs and make our country stronger (which it absolutely does). When you do those things faithfully, buying American will rub off on others.
Thanks for commenting. please consider taking the Buy American Challenge and signing up for facebook page and email updates and all that.
Good luck in your journey. Please stay in touch.
Randy
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Randy, I agree with you, the guidelines need to be simple and easy. I have worked in the service industry for many years and simple gets the best results. I have found if people have to work hard (do homework) they won’t do it. Also you need to show value for the money they are going to spend.
I realize that there are many things that one may need that are no longer made in USA, however if one is willing to use-used items, there are so many businesses (most every community has one or more) that carries USA cast iron cookware and many other products that were made in USA at very reasonable prices. These businesses eak out a living, pay taxes, basically recyling, and bring USA heritage forward.
Today so many want the newest, what is the matter with the old if it is so functionable. We are a very spoiled society, a very wastefull society. I charish my Griswold cast iron frying pans and dutch ovens. Granted they don’t shine or have a brillian color, they are generations, used black, but it isn’t the shinniness or color that brings forth a wonderful meal out of the oven, it is the pan it’s self and the person that puts love into the meal.
The coffee pot? We have gotten so use to electric coffee makers that the younger generation has no clue how to perk coffee! What would happen if you lost power? There is no electric coffee maker made in the USA today. However, the old Pyrex coffee maker (still available in shops and on shelves) can make coffee almost as fast and the coffee aroma throught your kitchen is awsome and the taste ranks right up to the best.
Randy, this is the first time I have ever blogged, however I am so passionate for USA that I am jumping in, this is the key to bringing our county back and put our countries people back to work…….BUY USA!
Sincerely,
Candy….a product of USA…from proud immagrants many years ago.
Duluth Trader has both American mad and imported jeans and they tell it in the description. http://www.duluthtrading.com/default.asp
Americans can meet any challenge, working as a team! We just left Lowes Store in Boynton Beach, FL telling them we would not buy verticals from them because none were from companies made in America. Clerk told us no verticals are made in America. We went to Home Depot and they had a few styles from company, Springs Verticals, which is made in America!. We told them we are buying only Made in America and so bought two sets of window verticals. We told them to get ready to hear this now that we have been organized….why can’t those elected by us and making huge sums of money and benefits have thought to do this…list of made in America?
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We live in a global economy, period! The major question for me is simple. Do the profits say here in America? And if people really understood the American Government policies on Import or Export, union labor controlling factors, and heavy regulations on American Businesses, you would not be “blaming” Walmart, Lowe’s, etc for buying overseas but you would clearly understand how our own government drove us into this ditch. American Government sets policies for us to operate within and because of careless, reckless, shameless policies it will continue to damage American businesses. Really simple folks, POLITICANS and policies control American businesses, American businesses just follow what policies our government have set. Humm… Next time, look at the legisaltion and understand the real reason behind business decisions. I am so sick and tired of the blaming game on corporations when in fact you need to look right in the face of our very own Government ! Knowledge is powerful.
Wanda,
This blog is all about Americans using their consumer behavior to take back our economy and create jobs. While some commentors might, we don’t blame anyone for the state of our economy. There is plenty of blame to go around, but we don’t get into that. Lokking back is pointless. We look FORWARD. If we will start buying American whenever we can, like I have been for almost 2 years now, we can turn around our economy by that alone. That’s a real solution, when everyone else is posturing and grastping at straws.
Thanks for commenting.
Randy
what a long story, but after reading it, I found it is worthy!!
hope you post more online, I love your post, and hope be your friend in the future! Titleist AP2 irons
Hey, That’s some great stuff..We are not helpless , we can take our country back..when the manufacturers that moved from here to china are selling less and less and the manufacturers here are selling more and more they will have to hire more people…JOB PROBLEM TAKEN CARE OF !! My wife and I are signing up..will post on our face book and on our e mail list..encourage others to do the same..Let get the snowball rolling !! Hoping for a news letter showing success and progress…also lists of american made products..
Thanks and God Bless Mike
Mike,
Thanks for the support, and thanks for buying American.
Randy
Good point, Mike. I totally agree. That is one of the reasons I started my website, http://www.all-americantoys.com. A more important reason,for my website, is that by buying American made products, we are helping to insure the safety and quality of life for the next generation. If our children are brought up on foreign made toys and other unsafe products, they may never know the value of quality and safety . They will only think in terms of what has the cheapest price tag in the store. I am starting to hear comments from some of my customers that they too are going to be looking for more American made products, and they are happy to find out that there are some out there.
My second website, http://www.americanclothingmall.com will be launching soon, giving consumers a place to purchase clothing made in the USA. This doesn’t deal with safety so much as it does with quality, and again supporting our American workers and the American economy. Many of these manufacturers, like the toy manufacturers,I deal with, are smaller, family-owned businesses. These are the manufacturers that are hurting the most from the trend of the large companies outsourcing in order to produce their product cheaper Also, the ones that produce in the USA have much stricter guidelines to follow, thus making their product cost more.
I hope we can help to get the idea through to the people -American made means quality, durability, and safety. Each of those things has a value of its own that can’t be seen when you look at the price tag in the store or on-line.
Randy,
Hats off to you for your Buy America efforts and this blog in particular. I am the first in line when it comes to laying blame at the doorstep of our politicians. However, we, the US consumer, will do ourselves a favor to step back and see the big picture. Washington is a big money machine. It cannot and will not operate without money. Even tho our founding fathers did not expect it to be this way, it has become big, corrupt business non-the-less. Don’t fall victim to any politician that gets up on his/her grandstand and tries to convince you that he/she is “for” the little guy. What the politician now-a-days is “for” is your money. Nothing more, nothing less. The reason is simple, money is power.
Now, lets think about that for just a minute. Since we the people are producers, then is seems reasonable to assume that ALL money is generated by us in some way or another. We are still in control of the portion of our hard earned money that the government has not yet confiscated thru taxes. Taxes that include confiscation of a large portion of our income, sales tax (which I happen to think is the ONLY fair tax.) and then the many taxes that are disquised by clever names on our utilities bills as fees. Environmental fees, and they even burden private business to collect taxes such as excise tax, which is a tax on top of a tax. — Getting on to the subject at hand; If we as consumers actually control what is left of the money that we earn, then we hold “power”. If we use that power to insist on American made goods, we can control, to a point, the outcome of the economy. How many factories would need to re-open and re-employ American workers? There are many other things to consider that will take me right back to the political discussion. So for now I’ll just be happy to encourage everyone to use the power that you have with the purse strings and give a big shot in the arm to the US economy by supporting this good Buy America Movement!
John,
Thank you for your support. No doubt there are many different places we could assign blame, and Washington is most definitely one of those places. However, I choose to focus on the things I can control. I only vote for Congress once every 2 years, and the President once every 4 years. But I decide every single day how I’m going to spend my dollars on the things I need. I say, let me control my consumption the best I can. That way I am doing my part to fix the problems that Washington cannot.
It is amazing to me how the more we grow to distrust our elected leaders, the more we seem to be asking them for solutions to our nation’s problems, instead of solving the problems ourselves. My belief is politicians don’t have the answers and they aren’t going to be coming up with the answers anytime soon. And even if one of them had a solution worth backing, they could never get enough of them going in the same direction long enough to get a solution implemented. The whole system is broken. I, too, am a little jaded about Washington.
My point is, we as Americans can do a lot to help our country regardless of what the talking heads in Washington decide to do or not do for our country. When we buy American, we have the power, not them. If Washington won’t create jobs, we will. I’m not waiting on anyone to fix this country for me, because I would only be setting myself up for disappointment. I’m doing this myself by buying American, and I’m bringing as many people with me as I can get.
Thank for commenting. Come back soon.
Randy
[...] an American job. Look for the Made in America tags. Check with webmaster’s. Ask if they carry American only products. If you are not sure, ask or write a letter to the store. Demanding made in America will force [...]
Randy, thank you so much for creating this blog and advertising the need to “Buy American.”
I have a dream. I’d love to create a private company or non-profit called “Build America Today”; it starts out small in a single American community and then goes on to expand all across the country. It only sells American-made products. Its clothing labels do not say “Made in America,” they say “Build America Today: designed in San Francisco, CA; woven in Calhoun, GA; assembled in North Bergen, New Jersey. Made by Americans.” On the clothing tags, there’s a note from Susan Hatcher, a clothing designer in San Francisco, Hector Ramirez, a weaver in Calhoun, GA, and Sui Shin Lee, a seamstress in North Bergen, New Jersey. The note has a picture of these three people and says, “Thanks for buying what we make. Your decision to purchase our product today helps our families and our communities grow strong.”
Within these “Build America Stores,” is a section or department devoted entirely to the local economy. Only items manufactured, produced, or grown within a 200-mile radius of the store are offered. The section has on display books, articles. posters that promote and explain the local economy, and how important it is to support it. It might even invite local enterpreneurs, businessmen, wage-earners, artisans, and artists to give talks on their wares and processes.
It, of course, has a consumer website as well. However, in addition to providing bricks-and-mortar stores in communities and an online presence, it provides an even more important service: developing the brand “Build America Today” and keeping it strong. And it does that by convincing companies to sign on to the following conditions:
1) Their company name, address, contact information and country of origin will be clearly listed on the “Build America Today” website, as well as the name, address, and contact information of the manufacturing, production, or assembly sites of their “Build America Today” products.
2) They agree that no H1B Visa holders or illegal aliens work on “Build America Today” products. Only American citizens and green card holders will be working on these products.
2) They agree to answer inquires from “Build America Today” and the press about their hiring practices.
3) They allow “Build America Today” access to their employees, so that profiles of their managers, engineers, designers, assembly-line workers, seamstresses, machinists, cleaning staff can be made for marketing material.
As you can see, in addition to hiring managers, accountants, salespeople, stockers, website designers for their retail chain and online website. “Build America Today” would also require quality control inspectors and marketing specialists to interface with companies.
One final thing, “Build America Today” stores and the website would highlight products from very special companies: those that provide a wage capable of sustaining a family of four to their lowest-paid employees. I’m sure these companies would be few and far between, but for those that do, it would be great to throw praise and recognition their way.
Well, that’s may dream. I hope you like it. I’d love to see “Build America Today” stores be as ubiquitous and enormous as Walmarts. I wish I had the skills, money and drive to make it happen. Is it a pipe dream?
[...] up some bananas (I’ll return to the ground rules that I’m following later, but basically the Buy American Challenge) and ran into some adorably cute chocolate truffle [...]
I had once heard that “Made in USA” did not mean the same as “Made in U.S.A.” Can you please clarify the difference? Thanks!
Randy,
As a large amount of our shopping has gone from buying at “brick and mortar stores” to catalog or internet-based purchasing, I’m finding it almost impossible to find where a product is made. Why are US companies not required to print the country of manufacture or origin in the text of their catalog or online descriptions? Shouldn’t there be a law requiring such information be disclosed so that consumers can make the same informed decision regarding purchases that they could if they were in the store reading the product label?
Jebb,
You’re right. It can be difficult. I’ve experienced the same problem. Sometimes you read conflicting things about the same product. I don’t know precisely what the law calls for to tell you the truth. I will certainly make it a blog post topic one day. In the mean time, if anyone knows the laws surrounding country of origin disclosure, please share with us.
Best,
Randy
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