The State of "Made in America"

In June, news broke that the makers of the Instant Pot were planning a new line of products, some emblazoned with a motto not typically associated with kitchenware: "Make America Great Again." Reporting revealed that tableware company Lenox, owned by the same private-equity firm as the Instant Pot, also planned Trump-tribute dinnerware. The collections were quickly tabled, but it’s a reflection of our current cultural moment, where even something as simple as a countertop pressure cooker is political.

And as a result of these dynamics, the very concept of "Made in America" has taken on a partisan tinge. Increasingly, the catchphrase and the concept are intertwined with the president’s ideological agenda and tariff policies, which are predicated on the argument that it’s possible to restore American manufacturing to a golden age—furniture included—through brute economic force. In March, in fact, Trump quite explicitly promised a revival: "That business all went to other countries, and now it’s all going to come back into North Carolina, the furniture manufacturing business." And in August, he announced an "Investigation" (his cap) to determine tariff rates on imported furniture; "This will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union," he promised on Truth Social. By the end of September, the administration said tariffs on lumber and some upholstered furniture and cabinetry would take effect the following month.

Few phrases are quite as evocative as "Made in America," though exactly what picture it paints varies wildly. There’s a connotation of classic, well-made design, as forthright as a firm handshake: L.L.Bean tote bags and rock-solid maple furniture with a maker’s mark burned into the underside. Throughout history, there’s been an ideological current running through the idea, a frisson of isolationism. Revolutionary Americans embraced homespun clothing as a political statement as tensions built with Britain; during the 19th century, America developed a mighty industrial base, which became part of the country’s identity. It wasn’t always a surefire advertising concept, though: In 1915, a planned "Made in America" exhibition at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute was canceled, according to the New York Times, because manufacturers didn’t want to admit their products weren’t made in Europe. Even as America gloried in its tales of self-made millionaires piling up enormous industrial fortunes, elites attempted to prove themselves by evoking the Old World, and imports from across the Atlantic had a special sheen.

But encouraging the consumption of American-made goods was core to the sociopolitical order built in the wake of World War II, and products like color television sets and washing machines were elevated as symbols of American capitalism, quite literally. Part of the 1959 argument between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev was conducted while they stood in a model kitchen designed by General Electric. The world wanted America’s stuff, too: One 1963 article recommended as a gift for Europeans American-made printed sheets, washable quilts, and "printed towels and rugs made of synthetic fibers that look like fur for the bathroom."

Artisanal and authentic ruled the day, and "Made in America" took on a gauzy kind of romance with an appealing narrative.

The lure of Europe for American consumers was still strong, though—witness the rise of Danish modern as a sign of midcentury sophistication. "The United States is losing out," a source told the New York Times in 1985. "We don’t have a good strong image anymore." High-end design meant places like Italy, France, and Germany.

The early aughts brought an enthusiasm for all things small and locally sourced, as though a whole demographic had been made into sleeper agents by childhood readings of Ox-Cart Man. It was the era of Mason jars (made for decades in Muncie, Indiana) and the rediscovery of craft beer (made in a formerly dilapidated industrial building near you) and the upscaling of farmers’ markets (in cities around the country, as the slow-food movement took hold). Artisanal and authentic ruled the day, and "Made in America" took on a gauzy kind of romance with an appealing narrative; it had a whiff of post-9/11 patriotism, but a soft-focus one that seemed to suggest sustainability, responsible labor practices, and quality.

That boom occurred in the context of a broader reality: Fewer and fewer things were being made in America. Competition was no longer about proving American-made was just as good as European; other countries, like China, just made things cheaper and faster. This bloomed into a source of increasing cultural anxiety, with ironic precedents such as Walmart getting busted by Dateline in 1992 for instances of foreign-made goods stocked under Made in the USA signs at several stores. "We want to create and sell products all over the world that are stamped with three simple words: ‘Made in America,’ " Barack Obama proclaimed in a 2010 speech. And yet the American furniture-making industry, for example, continued to hollow out.

The early-aughts hipster moment has receded, but its consumer tendencies have mutated into a weird conservative successor perhaps best exemplified by the John Wayne pastoralism of Hannah Neeleman and her wildly popular social media empire, Ballerina Farm (named for Neeleman’s prior career). Now, Neeleman depicts her daily life on a Utah ranch, promoting her own line of Farmer Protein from an admittedly gorgeous wooden kitchen. She and her husband recently opened a farm stand that sells raw milk, among other local items.

Meanwhile, Trump’s economic agenda seems to revolve around inconsistently tariffing the world into reviving American manufacturing. It echoes a tradition of a profoundly conservative and even reactionary side to "Made in America," like William Randolph Hearst’s anti-Asian "Buy American" boosterism of the 1930s. It’s far from clear that it’ll work, either: America’s remaining furniture producers are riding the wave of fallout from the tariffs, and they’re not alone. Many industries are dealing with countertariffs, further contributing to an atmosphere of intense uncertainty.

"Made in America" has always been a bit of a mirage. It never automatically meant high quality, and plenty of American-made items from the midcentury are as ugly as sin, even if solidly constructed. The truth is that good design is like anything else: There are no shortcuts. And the best of American craftsmanship has been at the work of hands and influences from all over the world, as befits a nation of immigrants.

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