GARRICK MILLS, Ohio — A volunteer committee that has pledged to buy only American-made goods said Saturday that the record volume of imports reported by the federal government for August was proof that Americans are buying American, a conclusion the group reached after reading the figures aloud twice at its weekly meeting in the back room of a hardware store.
“Everything on that boat was bought by an American,” said Doris Kalb, 68, chair of the Garrick Mills Buy American Committee, who said she had reviewed the Commerce Department’s report on a tablet her grandson set up for her. “Somebody in this country ordered it. Somebody in this country is paying for it. That is the buying. Where it was made before it got here is a separate question, and it is a rude one.”
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Oct. 6 that the U.S. goods and services trade deficit widened to $105.6 billion in August, up $12.7 billion from July. Imports rose 4.3 percent from the month before to a record $420.8 billion. Exports were $315.2 billion. The gap was the widest in 17 months, according to independent trackers that compiled the release.
Capital-goods imports climbed to a record $146.4 billion, with most of the increase tied to semiconductors and industrial machinery, the bureau said. The committee’s pledge, laminated and hung above the coffee urn, reads “We buy American,” and a handwritten line beneath it, added at a meeting in March, reads “And if it is not American when we buy it, it is American by the time we get home.”
“The chips are American chips,” Kalb said. “They are designed in the mind of an American. Then they take a little trip, and the trip is not their fault.”
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said by phone from a parking garage that the committee’s reasoning was consistent with the institute’s position on ports. “A harbor is a border that has been relabeled. The goods are domestic the moment they are unloaded,” Brickhouse said. “Who unloads them is the whole point. That is why we buy them.”
The Center for Measured Outcomes calculated that the August deficit came to about $3.4 billion for every day of the month. Dr. Marjorie Teller, the center’s director, said the figure was “large, but not in a way that touches anyone’s hardware.” The committee described it as “a lot of hardware,” and said it had been meaning to order some.
The year-to-date goods and services deficit, the bureau also reported, is down 19.9 percent from the same period in 2025. Kalb said she had read that line twice and found it “encouraging, but about the wrong thing.”
Asked whether the committee had ever considered buying goods made in Garrick Mills, Kalb said, “We considered it. It was the second meeting, and it went long.”
At the close of the meeting, the committee voted 5-0 to keep its pledge as written and to change the imports column in its ledger to read “Domestic Arrivals.” The treasurer, who was not present, approved the change by phone.