When you buy American only, you are engaging in protectionism. You are protecting American manufacturers from competition. Which means that they have less pressure to innovate and be efficient, which means that they become less competitive, which means eventually they go out of business or you end up subsidising inefficiency or outdated tech, which ultimately does the US and its people no good. Let the US exit this relatively low tech niche and focus on high value added, high wage technology. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. You are not doing anyone any favors ultimately. Sorry to burst your populist bubble.
Considering that trade policies, monetary policy, and random fluctuations in exchange rates all impact the above (none of which are within the control of any individual manufacturer), your argument is simplistic and misinformed.
The U.S.’s desire to win the Cold War, for example, involved purposely providing over-generous trade terms to western allies, which hurt domestic manufacturing. Likewise, the Volcker Shock, which was about crushing inflation, also hurt domestic manufacturers. Today, U.S. tech and pharma IP, not manufacturing, tends to drive trade policy.
There’s no such thing as neutral trade policy. It’s all politics and fluctuations in key, but unrelated, economic indicators. Very few companies, and certainly not ones as small as Schiit, can bend these policies to their will.
Moreover, “protectionism” (insofar as it‘s a valuable term at all) applies to government policy, not to individual consumers’ decisions. That’s just personal values and preference.
ADDENDUM: I wrote this before seeing Amir’s comment above. But, as an economic historian, I feel this is worth noting. If we’re going to throw around “flawed logic” claims, we at least need to call out when such claims are themselves based on over-simplicity or ignorance.
