PolitiFact Finds No TV Sets Labeled Made in USA

No television sold in the USA carried a “Made in USA” label, PolitiFact Virginia reported on March 14, 2016. Checking Donald Trump’s Feb. 23 statement that the country “doesn’t make television sets anymore,” the fact-checker rated the claim True.

Assembled, not made

PolitiFact noted that under Federal Trade Commission policy, a company may claim “Made in USA” only if “all or virtually all” of a product is made domestically. Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, told PolitiFact that nearly all TV components are made in Asia and that “it would be impossible to manufacture a TV in the U.S. without imported parts.” By PolitiFact’s estimate, about 99% of the sets sold in the USA were made and assembled abroad.

The review found three companies that assembled TVs in the USA to some degree:

• Element Electronics, Winnsboro, South Carolina, the largest. Its sets, sold by Walmart, Target and others, came in boxes marked “Assembled in the USA.” Citing a July 2014 Wall Street Journal report, PolitiFact said workers inserted a Chinese-made board into sets shipped from China and tested them. Many sets carried “Made in China” on the back. An assembly quota of 1,000 sets a day reported in 2014 would equal about 1% of U.S. TV sales.
• Seura, Green Bay, Wisconsin, which assembled high-end mirror and waterproof TVs. A spokesman said its screens were made in the USA but most components were imported.
• SunBrite TV, Thousand Oaks, California, which assembled outdoor sets.

PolitiFact had rated a similar Trump statement Half True in October 2015. After the new review it re-rated the claim True and removed the earlier rating. ABC15 Arizona reported that Trump repeated the claim at a Tucson rally on March 19, 2016.

Element’s founder later told TWICE that the company had never claimed its TVs were “Made in America,” only that several models were assembled in the USA from imported parts.