For the two-thirds of Americans who drink at least one cup of coffee per day, it’s nearly impossible to be a true locavore. More than three-quarters of U.S. coffee imports come from just four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, and Honduras, countries that have the right climate for growing it.
Whether you bought a multipack of screamers, bottle rockets, and roman candles from a roadside stand, or plan to watch a professionally-designed community display this Fourth of July, chances are the fireworks themselves were produced in China.
Despite the diffusion of drug production globally, a full three-quarters of spending on medicines in the United States is on products that are manufactured domestically, by both American and foreign companies.
One result of the widespread acceptance of e-commerce and home delivery is a growing and urgent demand for drivers – at least for now.
The super powers of the materials in our jeans, suits, and mattresses require textile innovation, something at which American researchers, engineers, and designers in the textile industry excel.
Europe, North America, Japan and Russia are the biggest traditional markets for snowboarding. As the Olympic Winter Games kick off, the industry is hoping new events and even more spectacular tricks will provide “big air” to the sport’s popularity, particularly in Asia.
“I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be…have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple. Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.”
The global production of goods can be charted by each stage at which activity occurs and value is added. The great news is that Americans excel at the activities on the production curve that require the most creativity and know-how, and that generate the most profit.
If you’re one of the millions of Americans headed to Starbucks for a seasonal pumpkin spice latte, the benefits of trade are right in your hand. Whether it’s Starbucks or a boutique coffee shop, the coffee we drink is imported. Because while the United States excels at growing many crops, coffee beans aren’t one of them.
Most products today are the result of creative, physical, and intellectual efforts by people in different roles across the globe—they are designed in one country, their materials are procured in another, their components may be made and assembled somewhere else. Their “Made in…” labels only tell us the country where that product last underwent some significant change or “substantial transformation”. That’s just a snapshot of one stop on their journey