Americans have been conditioned to prefer lower cost items...however, that conditioning can and will be reversed if/when the manufacture of those goods returns to the USA.
“Americans have been conditioned to prefer lower cost items...however, that conditioning can and will be reversed if/when the manufacture of those goods returns to the USA.”
By all means, let’s have the government initiate a behavior modification program to ensure that Americans are conditioned to paying higher prices for items.
There is an efficiency about free-market economics that drives the desire to obtain goods more cheaply; it's not a "conditioning," as you put it.
To expect consumers to pay more for something simply because it's manufactured in one place versus another--especially when the products are relatively equal in quality is artificial. It's the stuff that Obama's green-energy fantasies are made of. Consumers won't pay more for energy because it's "green," especially if the outcome is the same.
Likewise, people won't pay three times as much for an American snow-shovel, when one manufactured and assembled in Malaysia will work just as well.
Granted, you might be able to brand some products as "American-made" and sell those at a premium, but it's not likely that you could brand everything like that.