Made in America 2.0: behind Google and Apple's sudden patriotism

The Moto X purports to be the first smartphone assembled in the US. But Google and Motorola are hardly the only big-name brands in tech using patriotism to move product these days.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made headlines last December when he announced that Apple would be making a product in the US this year. That product turned out to be the bold, new, trashcan-shaped Mac Pro, first unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June. Clearly, something is driving some of the most important companies in consumer tech to promote their affiliations with the US more today than they have in decades. But what? "There’s no doubt that ‘Made in America’ advertising is effective," said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a nonprofit trade group founded in 2007 to represent steelworkers and other US industrial laborers. "It’s not limited to tech gadgets." To his point, a recent survey by the Boston Consulting Group found that 80 percent of 5,000 consumers were willing to pay more for products made in America, including electronics. The same study found Chinese consumers were also willing to pay more for American-made products. Two other trends in the US are also making it into a more attractive electronics manufacturing hub: a depressed labor market and faltering worker wages.