Just wanted to point your attention to an interesting article I read last month in The Wall Street Journal, titled Not Really ‘Made in China’. It takes a look at just what goes into the trade deficit amount that is listed for products shipped from China. Basically, if China is the country of origin then they get the “credit” for the import of the product…and as we all know we are all in a huff about how much our trade imbalance is with China. But what is revealing about this story is how China is often the assembler of parts made in other countries and so actually isn’t the beneficiary of that whole dollar amount credited to the trade.
The article uses Apple’s iPhone 3G as an example. The parts/labor value for the $178.96 phone come from Japan (34%), Germany (17%), South Korea (13%), U.S. (6%), and Other Countries (27%). China only represents 3.6% of that value. But because they are the final assembler they have the trade statistic. Very interesting. I encourage you to read and see what you think… may influence our thoughts a bit about how we view trade numbers.
Josh
Greg
E
Mr. Mike
Mark
Dude Man
Criticism As Inspiration 
