Here's the really sad part; I used to be a buyer/importer a few years back. I spent three years in China and Taiwan. I would buy things domestically as well. Some of my major suppliers, where I was buying over tens-of-millions of dollars worth of goods from, would tell me I could get it cheaper (from them) if I were to buy it out of China (through them). The discount, just for going through China, was about 10%. This was just raw materials! Due to government involvement (on both sides) there were enough rebates/tax incentives to ship the raw materials to the far east and back to end up saving money! If it had to be fab'd in China, the manufacturer usually got a rebate (in my category up to 60%) so that he could sell at his cost and still make 60% (of course he'd wait 3 years to get his rebate, so he'd subtract the carrying costs of the money as well as a small profit and he'd still make money selling 30% below market cost!). It's just not a level playing field and that's where service and true craftsmanship come into play to allow us to compete.