I suspect most people are like me. They don’t want to subsidize brutal dictatorships like China. Whenever I shop, I try to avoid buying products made in either China’s sweatshops or its high-tech factories.
Yes, it sometimes costs more to buy non-Chinese products. But, when we buy Chinese, we also pay a heavy price.
When we buy a Chinese-made product or service, every dollar we send back to China could possibly feed its brutal, despotic government. It feeds China’s messianic foreign expansion in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It further expands China’s rapidly growing army, navy, air force, and space program. It feeds Chinese concentration camps. It encourages China’s rampant theft of Western intellectual property. It rewards China’s daily hacking of Western infrastructure as well as government and private databases. It pays for the Communist government’s tyranny over its 1.4 billion people.
We have thousands of deeply moral and strategic reasons to stop purchasing anything produced in China.
But the difficulty of figuring out how to avoid Chinese products poses problems.
Since 1930, the United States has had mandatory Country of Origin Label (COOL) requirements for foreign-produced food products. And, with dozens of exceptions, sundry manufactured products imported into the United States must also list the country of origin.
But there is an enormous loophole in U.S. import policy! In particular, online retailers in America do not have to list the country of origin of the products they sell.
Since tens of millions of Americans now shop online, these shoppers don’t have the opportunity to look at labels or package covers to see where a product is made. I run into this problem almost every time I shop online. I buy a product, and I see where it was made only when it is delivered.
We need to plug this gaping loophole and fast.
Both the President and Congress should act. Congress should pass a law that requires online sellers, particularly the larger ones like Amazon, Walmart, Macy’s, and Target, to identify prominently the country of origin of the products they sell. Adding a large-print three-word label “Made in China” to each Chinese product sold online would be easy and extremely inexpensive. Let’s do it! And let each American consumer decide.
China is a great country with a long history as an impressive civilization. But it has been taken over by a brutal Communist leadership.
Until those leaders are replaced by a more open regime, shoppers in the West should avoid buying Chinese products and subsidizing China’s aggressive, autocratic system.
James S. Fay is a semi-retired California attorney, political scientist, and college administrator. His articles have appeared in social science and law journals and the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and Real Clear Education. In addition, he has published articles on the Helsinki Accords, presidential emergency powers, and NATO funding. He served as an intelligence officer in the U. S. Army, 3rd Armored Division.

jw
December 23, 2022 at 3:13 pm
Be careful when buying foodstuffs, more & more from China. I have seen fresh garlic, Chinese. And the minced garlic you see, if it does not say made in USA it is likely China. “Spiceworld” the brand you see often would not answer direct inquiries. GOYA proudly says Made in USA as do others.
Ben d'Mydogtags
December 24, 2022 at 1:35 pm
Even stuff marked as made in XYZ country might actually be mostly made in China from China-produced component materials. The origin labels only show where the final step is performed. Many products marked “Made in USA” are only finished in the USA. I recall a few years back US Customs actually seized a big shipment of “Made in USA” tags being illegally manufactured in China, to be applied to stuff once inside the USA (aka “final manufacturing”.)
And then there is the clothing industry scam. There are big sweatshops in The Marshal Islands, Guam, American Samoa etc. Why? Those are all considered US territories. Stuff made there can legally carry the “Made in USA” tag. They are however NOT under the same immigration/employment laws or OSHA laws as factories in the US-proper. So they can import low-paid workers from Asian countries, keep them locked in factory dormitories and work them hard to produce products for sale to well-intentioned buyers in the US.
Dave Mathews
December 24, 2022 at 3:25 pm
Also, don’t buy products like Iphones made by chinese slave labour by tax evasing company or trough large online sellers that have simillar practices..
Neofeudalfuture
December 24, 2022 at 8:47 pm
I dunno sounds racist. Since when did minorities in other countries have to be subject to such indignities like encouraging people to avoid products made by Chinese people?
Really it should only say made by a white American so Americans can decide to boycott it in favor of non white people who cant compete without an advantage as every anti- racist knows.
TheDon
December 25, 2022 at 9:03 am
Real pressure is making the stock ticker indicate country. Investors can also run.
Antoinette
December 26, 2022 at 4:31 pm
I do not buy anything made in USA. You scorn China yet everything you scorn America for has the same OR worse ! Who do you think you are kidding. You must be white and a Trumper. America has THE highest crime and incarceration rate in the WORLD!!! They work still for no pay as their ancestors did as slaves. Compare any REAL issue compared to China and it is America that is the true villin !!
Who made America the police of the world. With all their guns so they can kill people all over the world. Land mines that are made in America.