Free Republic

Those low-cost goods at Wal-Mart ultimately come at a high price: lost jobs, lower wages and unsupportable U.S. trade deficits. Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States, and the majority of its private-label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world—and almost none in the United States. Wal-Mart’s biggest trading partner is China. The world’s largest retailer bought some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002, from China, nearly 10 percent of all Chinese goods sold in this country that year. Through November 2004, the United States was running a $147 billion...