We’re going to bring the jobs back! We’re going to bring manufacturing back! Again and again, Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would force companies, through sheer will and financial penalties, to once again manufacture goods in the United States. Never mind that the U.S. is the second-leading manufacturing economy in the world. The jobs are here, the problem is they don’t pay well. And they pay even less in China and other parts of Asia. During a June 28, 2016 speech, Donald Trump decried the manufacturing jobs that moved overseas:
Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.
When subsidized foreign steel is dumped into our markets, threatening our factories, the politicians do nothing.
For years, they watched on the sidelines as our jobs vanished and our communities were plunged into depression-level unemployment.
Many of these areas have still never recovered. Our politicians took away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families.
You’d think that someone who manufactures so many items Trump-branded items overseas would focus on the bigger picture and map out a plan to bring those manufacturing jobs back here to the U-S of A, right? That brings us to Ivanka Trump’s $100 million made-in-Asia clothing line. As Trump took the Oath of Office in January, her company was shipping a massive amount of goods from China. Ivanka’s company appears to be the exception to Trump’s “Buy America” rule:
In his January inauguration speech, US President Donald Trump made a seemingly straightforward pledge: "We will follow two simple rules: buy American and hire American."
His daughter is the exception: even as he spoke, at least eight shipments of Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, bags and clothes -- more than 53.5 tonnes -- were steaming towards American ports from China, according to US Customs bills of lading examined by AFP.
Trump uses his presidential pulpit to censure manufacturers -- both domestic and foreign -- for using overseas labour to make goods for American consumers, but the Ivanka-branded orders have kept rolling in.
More than two tonnes of ladies' polyester woven blouses, 1,600 cowhide leather wallets and 23 tonnes of made-in-China footwear were among at least 82 such shipments that passed US Customs -- almost one per business day -- from Trump's November 8 election win through February 26, records showed.
And while Nordstrom and other retailers publicly dropped Ivanka Trump’s brand in February, don’t feel sorry for the billionaire daughter of Donald Trump. Kellyanne Conway’s televised plea on Fox News to Trump supporters to go out and buy Ivanka’s goods online actually worked:
Sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise dropped 26 percent online in January compared to January 2016, but the trend reversed in February. According to Slice Intelligence, online sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise swelled 207 percent in February from the prior month.
According to an analysis of email receipts by Slice Intelligence from a panel of 4.4 million online shoppers, online sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise in February surged on Amazon, pushing the website from being the fourth largest seller of the brand to the first, replacing Nordstrom, which previously held that spot.
Sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise surged 332 percent on Amazon in January and February 2017 compared to the same two months in 2016. Amazon-owned Zappos is the fourth largest online seller of Ivanka Trump merchandise, and in the first two months of 2017, it saw sales grow 18.4 percent compared to the same time period last year.
In fact, since Conway’s sales pitch on Fox News, Ivanka's company has had near record sales. All in all, don’t look for those cheaply made Chinese goods branded with Ivanka Trump’s name to stop rolling into our ports anytime soon. The brand is hotter than ever and the Trumps will continue cashing in.