Comment by everdrive
11 hours ago
It's very difficult if not impossible to avoid. Just how many hours do you want to spend doing research for _every single_ household item? It'd be genuinely difficult, and even plenty of stuff which claims to be "made in the USA" is actually just assembled here. It's possible to look these things up, but that takes time and it's difficult to get absolute certainty. And not all stuff from China is terrible, either. It's just an opportunity cost which is nearly impossible to avoid given just how common so much of the crap from China is.
A normal person who doesn't want to upend their life might have a few easier baby-steps: buy as little stuff as possible, and buy used whenever possible. The original country doesn't see any real direct benefit when you buy used.
Its very difficult to buy something "made in china" that is actually made there, not just assembled there. Even if you get something like a DJI drone, you can do some quick research and find out the guts (SOC) is from a company in California using IP from Europe/USA (arm).
That's a good point as well: where do you draw the line? If I buy a car, were the screens made in China? Is that a sufficiently small portion of the car to render it acceptable? If so, what about every remaining part in the car?