Any person who thinks that Americans would be building shit in squalid sweat shop conditions is missing the fact that the reason Americans think we're better than everyone else is we've been trying to get away from those conditions. Quality > Quantity. I don't need a billion chinese shirts, i need a couple really nice ones. I don't need a collection of shoes, just a couple nice ones for specific tasks. It's the same shit over and over again.
I used to use mechanixwear gloves as my go to for shooting for example, but they're made like trash now and fall apart easily. Yet if you spend 4-5x more you can get a much better quality product made in America.
How about instead of paying 5x as much, we spend 2-3x as much, but we don't compete with trash, and instead of me having a series of low quality goods, I have a smaller series of high quality goods.
Also note that sweat shops are always shown making clothes. They never show off someone hand making a car in their garage, or some japanese craftsman making knives in the ancient style. Because those videos are actually praise, not criticism. Essential humanism in action. People want to make things, and they don't want to live a life of suffering. If you can't economically manage that, maybe you should be thrown off a bridge, and we try something else?
People who are currently hooked on buying Temu crap fail to understand how bad China really is.
China is the biggest exporter of counterfeit goods; there's a 50/50 chance those overpriced kicks and pricy handbags they're buying from legitimate sites are FAKE because China cheated the retailer, and only Nike and Louis Vuitton can tell if the product is real or fake a first sight. That's how good China is at counterfeiting.
But wait! There's more!! China does not have a problem with counterfeiting cheaper items either. They'll gladly sell fake pearls, fake jade, fake leather, and fake silk, because these are somewhat hard to distinguish from real, and a lot of people can't tell the difference. They like cheating in the costume jewelry market too; marketing jewelry as gold-plated silver at higher prices, and delivering low-quality gold-plated zinc. This scam is a favorite, because it's very hard to tell what a jewelry item is filled with, without badly damaging or destroying the item. They're big fans of selling cubic zirconia as much more expensive lab-created diamonds (moissanite). And if they get caught faking? Close their shops and open three new ones under different names, selling the same stuff.
Remember when the Chinese poisoned our dogs, cats, and infants by putting melamine in their food? I do, and most of the people who bought the tainted food had NO IDEA that it was made in China. And I don't think I need to talk about how they're poisoning some of us with fentanyl.
Let's not forget about the GROSS intellectual property theft either. A lot of the items that China uses to claim "Most Advanced Nation in the World!" status are made with stolen intellectual property, and made worse than the original due to shortcuts and shoddy workmanship.
These are unforgiveable things. We can't be trading partners with a country that rips us off so shamelessly, even to the point of PURPOSEFULLY KILLING US AND OUR PETS. We can't have it, not for any amount of discount.
And speaking of shameful displays, we really can't be trading partners with India either. Not until they close all the West Bengal call centers that are scamming American elderly. Sorry, but this complete lack of morals should disqualify India until they fix it.