About American Made Here
Who We Are
I start from scratch to research every brand listing. I don't publish under my legal name, and I am not trying to hide the fact. I have a full-time client in my day job and being publicly identified with a commercial affiliate site would create real professional complications for them, so I write as Max Perkins instead.
I spent years reading "not made in China" and "made in USA" content online get less and less easy to use. Someone would launch a sitewith real research behind it, then go stale for years while still making outdated claims. Others never did the research in the first place, just listing familiar American and European brand names without checking the often complex facts behind them. Meanwhile the companies themselves got less transparent as country-of-origin data quietly disappeared from retailer listings. Vague labeling like "Designed in California, Assembled Elsewhere" became common enough that most shoppers stopped trying look beneath the surface.
I am a practicing lawyer with an economics degree, and the habit of checking the evidence for claims using the most accurate sources carries over directly into this process. Why Buy from China started as an attempt to examine products and carry out the verification properly. I started American Made Here because "not made in China" and "made in USA" turned out to be two different standards that were useful to two different audiences.
Where I've personally owned or used a product long enough to say something from my own experience, I say so directly and offer my own subjective opinions.
How We Verify
"Made in USA" can be a legally stricter claim than "not made in China." The Federal Trade Commission requires a product to be "all or virtually all" made in the United States before that label can be used. This is an affirmative claim that outs the burden on the brand. We hold every brand on this site to that, whether or not the brand itself is clear about the distinction.
Before a brand appears here, we check:
- Manufacturer disclosures - what the company states directly about factory locations and supply chains
- The FTC's "all or virtually all" standard - final assembly in the US isn't enough on its own if major components are imported
- Product-level labeling - country-of-origin marks required by law, which sometimes tell a different story than a brand's homepage
- Model-by-model differences - many brands make some products domestically and others overseas and market them in a similar way. We name the specific lines that qualify, flag the ones that don't and show you want to look for
Manufacturing locations may not be permanent. A brand that was fully domestic last year may have shifted part of its supply chain since then. We revisit listings if needed, rather than treating a verification as permanent. Broil King's American made grills, for example, come from two different plants depending on the model: Huntington, Indiana and Dickson, Tennessee. We explain both on our Grills page rather than treating "Broil King" as a just one answer.
Our Mission
TThis isn't a site for avoiding products from any one country. It's about making the companies that build things here get the customers they deserve - the family-owned manufacturer in Oregon, the third-generation shop in Texas, the product of a reshoring project and the factory that never left in the first place. Those businesses may not have the marketing budget to compete with better-known importers, so they're easy to overlook even when they make an equal or better product.
Buying domestic keeps jobs, wages, and manufacturing knowledge in the United States. Shorter supply chains mean closer accountability and a more convenient way to return things when something goes wrong. We think that's worth knowing before you buy, even when it costs a little more.
Recent tariffs have changed the calculation for a lot of products. Import costs on many overseas goods have gone up, and they tend to narrow the price gap that used to make importing the obvious choice. A domestic brand that seemed too expensive five years ago can be genuinely price-competitive today. We don't track tariff rates in real time on this site, but it's part of why the "buy domestic" case is stronger now than it was.
RReshoring, when companies move production back to the United States after conducting operations overseas, is one of the more encouraging trends in American manufacturing right now, and we describe it when it is a factor. We work alongside the Reshoring Initiative, an organization that has spent years documenting and encouraging this shift from the supply side. Where they focus on the manufacturers making the move, the supply side, we focus on the demand side: making sure the products of that reshoring are easy for consumers to find.
Affiliate Disclosure
This site participates in the Amazon Associates program and other affiliate partnerships. If you buy something through a link on this site, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Verification is independent of any commission. A brand that doesn't meet our standard doesn't appear here regardless of what an affiliate program might pay.
Contact
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American Made Here is independently owned and operated, with no affiliation to any government agency. Last updated July 2026.