Is it ‘Made in America’ when the company is not American?

Airbus, a French company, received permission to proceed on labeling their A220 narrow-body plane as ‘Made in America’ on the basis that they have an assembly location in Alabama. (Johnsson, 2020) This new label allows Airbus to circumvent tariffs while selling to US companies. With the growing competition between Airbus and Boeing, this new label is creating an opportunity for Airbus to take over more of the market share, especially with Boeing’s PR nightmare that is the 737-max.

Although this saves Airbus a considerable amount of money in tariffs (Johnsson, 2020), will their new status have the same competitive advantage as an American company that is manufacturing in the U.S.?

Does the average consumer care if their product is actually ‘Made in America’ or just assembled in the US with foreign suppliers? The labels that people use (Country of Origin) to assist in their purchasing decisions have different definitions that what the reader infers by the text (Made in USA, 2020). Similar to the COO label, there is also a country-of-manufacture (COM) label that shows which countries the part has been manufactured, allowing for the consumer to judge the quality and regulations of the product based on their perceived standards of each country (Chen, Gao, Lui, Marther & Wright, 2020).
According to Kim & Pysarchik (2000), ethnocentric purchasing decisions are only a factor when the consumer does not already know the brand name well. As long airlines know the Airbus name, it does not actually affect their purchasing decisions.

Kim, S. and Thorndike Pysarchik, D. (2000), “Predicting purchase intentions for uni‐national and bi‐national products”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 280-291.

Chen, S., Wright, M.J., Gao, H., Liu, H. and Mather, D. (2020), “The effects of the brand origin and country-of-manufacture on consumers’ institutional perceptions and purchase decision-making”, International Marketing Review, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-08-2019-0205

Johnsson, J. (2020, September 14). Airbus Set to Unveil Made-In-America A220, Cutting In on Boeing’s Home Turf. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-14/airbus-set-to-unveil-made-in-america-a220-to-showcase-u-s-foray

Kim, S. and Thorndike Pysarchik, D. (2000), “Predicting purchase intentions for uni‐national and bi‐national products”, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 280-291
Made in USA. (n.d.). Retrieved October 02, 2020, from https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/advertising-and-marketing/made-in-usa