What products are outsourced to the US from other countries?

Question

The US outsources most manufacturing jobs overseas and technology call centers are now overseas. What jobs and/or products are outsourced to us from other countries?

Answer 1

One big is culture; US movies, music and other media are visible in every other corner at least around here in northern Europe (and AFAIK in other parts of Europe and South America, and several countries in Asia and Africa too. I suppose the penguins at Antarctica watch their own MTV).

Another one is military technology. I guess half of the people shot around the world get killed with made in USA -technology. Russia is a big competitor here though, they make simple things cheaper.

But as a simplified thought: in the past it was so that countries did what they could do best, and imported what was done better somewhere else. Nowadays only the owners of big multinational companies live in developed countries (and the whole supportive colonies producing services for them), and everything that can be done somewhere else is done there where workers have no rights and get paid in bananas.

Answer 2

All of the large foreign automakers (Toyota, Mercedes, BMW, etc) have plants in the United States. Many other European companies like Heidelberg, Michelin, Siemens, etc have factories here.

By the way, can you source your claim that "The US outsources most manufacturing jobs overseas"

I don't believe it is true that over 50% of our manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas, to my knowledge it is about 1-4% since 1998.

Answer 3

Just to name a few...

Pharmaceutical research (almost all major non-U.S. pharnaceutical companies have research facilities in the U.S.), investment banking (6 out of 20 largest investment banks in Europe are American), management of non-U.S. multinational enterprises operating in Western hemisphere (almost every European and Japanese multinational runs its Americas business out of the U.S.), automobile design (almost every major manufacturer, from Hyundai to Mercedes, has a design studio in Southern California; most of them are staffed with the graduates of Art Center College of Design located in Pasadena), high-end retirement services (Florida and California are full of wealthy retirees from all over the world, from Britain to El Salvador), specialty financial services (Britain's Barclays, for example, runs its exchange-traded funds business out of San Francisco), and, interestingly enough, manufacturing (Honda and Toyota started manufacturing in the U.S. back in 1980s, BMW and Mercedes, in 1990s, Hyundai joined the club in 2005).

Answer 4

The US makes/produces very few tangible things. However we are likely the world's largest producer of lawyers, advertising, insurance and music videos.

Answer 5

Lots of biotech and research. We also take great pains to import doctors, nurses, and computer programmers.

Answer 6

Repair of aircraft components on US made aircraft, both military and commercial.