"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:OJyuf.1546$Dh.880@dukeread04...
Ed Huntress" wrote

Wal-Mart is China's eighth-largest trading partner. The other seven are
countries. d8-) It is a larger trading partner with China than
Australia,
Russia, or Canada.

However, Wal-Mart's purchases from China last year were roughly $18
billion,
out of $260 billion of total Wal-Mart purchases worldwide that year. So
the
Chinese component of Wal-Mart's products tends to be overestimated by
casual
observers.

Does that include the US suppliers that Wal-Mart forced to move production
to China to meet their price?

I knew someone would ask that. g I don't know how complete the accounting
is for goods made in China but sourced through US companies. And I don't
want to hazard a guess.

The story is more complex than many realize, however. For example, Sanyo had
a TV plant in Arkansas that supplied Sears. Sears cut them off (they
perfected squeezing suppliers decades before Wal-Mart got into it). Sanyo
wanted to divide the plant and move part of it to Mexico, and the other part
to Asia. But Wal-Mart told them they would pay more for the TV sets if they
kept the plant in the US.

So they did. And now that Sanyo plant in Arkansas is the world's largest
producer of TVs.

--
Ed Huntress