I really appreciate the “Made in America” segments aired on ABC news recently, encouraging people to buy American goods.  I hope that someone will take the concept a big step further, however.  When my wife and I shop, we like to buy as many “Made in America” products as we can and would even pay a bit more to buy them.  What we don’t have, however, is the enormous amount of time it takes to decipher whether each product is made in America or not.  We have many friends with the same point of view.

In Wyoming, we have a state trademark, the Bucking Horse and Rider.  We also have a Wyoming Made products promotion program sponsored by the State of Wyoming and the Wyoming Business Council.  The website is http://www.wyomingbusiness.org/wyomingfirst.  Buying Wyoming-made products is promoted statewide.  Benefits include being able to display the state trademark so that buyers can easily identify Wyoming-made products.  I expect other U.S. states have similar programs.

I think it would be a great idea if there was a national trademark to clearly identify American-made products so shoppers could easily identify American-made products at a glance.  Businesses would be authorized to use the trademark on all American-made products.  The “Buy American” trademark could be widely promoted by the federal, state and local governments; consumer groups; as well as product manufacturers and distributors, and the media.

Businesses offering American-made products would be authorized to use the trademark on product labels, benefiting from the nationwide mass promotion.  Improperly use of the trademark could be subject to federal trademark violation penalties.  Businesses selling products made outside of the U.S. would have an incentive to manufacture their products here, as more people would be buying less of their products, and more from those businesses selling American-made products.  Therefore, this scenario provides a method of promoting more jobs in the U.S.

A deficient component in the American economy that used to be very common, is American manufacturing.  When I was young, I got my start in several manufacturing jobs.  The first day on the job, I operated machinery, and I had health benefits and good pay.  I was also able to gain valuable knowledge and advance within the company, which also provided experience for future jobs.  One manufacturing company even paid tuition assistance as an employee benefit to help with my college education.  Today, I have a Bachelors degree in Economics and an MBA.  Not every American worker is qualified to be a corporate executive.  We need to get back to manufacturing goods in America in order to provide jobs that many people can qualify for.  A national trademark for American-made products is a huge step in that direction.