Made in USA, RIP?

If this report doesn't trouble you at least a little, nothing much will.

Remember when old Sam Walton, God rest his soul, once took a stand against selling merchandise not made in the USA? A red-blooded American patriot could spend his or her paycheck at Wal Mart with pride in those days.

Times change, economies change, and so do marketing strategies.

China Business Weekly is reporting that Wal Mart has $18 billion of imported Chinese merchandise either on its shelves, in the warehouse, or already sold this year, a 20% increase from 2003. (HT: Drudge) That's $18 billion in U.S. dollars going overseas, not to American suppliers with American jobs.

Xu Jun, Wal-Mart China's director of external affairs, said, "If Wal-Mart were an individual economy, it would rank as China's eighth-biggest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia and Canada." Another tidbit from the article:

So far, more than 70 per cent of the commodities sold in Wal-Mart are made in China.

The only non-troubling piece of information in the article was the name of the enthusiastic writer: Jiang Jingjing. It resonates with the sound of cash registers in hyper drive, an apt mental picture of what's happening for the People's Republic, and for Wal Mart. Only when we think about the expected $150 billion balance-of-trade deficit with China, suddenly even the jing-jing jiangle of appropriate bylines sounds a mite discordant.