just.a.guy

A Consumer Reports survey notes a wave of "Buy American" sentiment among car shoppers, with 81% likely to consider domestic cars vs. 47% for Asian cars and 46% European. So why did Asia rake in the bulk of the clunker cash?

Defining whether a car is American or foreign is much more nuanced than simply looking at the flag flying over the corporate headquarters of its maker, due to the global nature of the supply chains in the industry, not to mention the global nature of the shareholders and bondholders in these enterprises.

There are Toyotas that by most reasonable definitions (% of parts content, % of labor content) are more American than some "American" cars.

The political / country flags over the HQ's these days really are more representative of the system of management / corporate culture than anything else as a result.

Instead of taking a more nuanced view, when most people say "buy American cars" what they REALLY mean is "buy a car assembled by a UAW worker in a legacy midwest plant with an American corporation's logo on the side" -- simplistic and wrong.