- FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak visited Utah's Leitner-Poma-Skytrac Tuesday to highlight their domestic production.
- It comes as the Trump administration continues to emphasize domestic manufacturing.
- The FTC has already warned companies like Amazon and Walmart about false "Made in USA" claims.
TOOELE — The Trump administration spotlighted an American manufacturer in Utah on Tuesday for making its products entirely in the United States amid President Donald Trump's crackdown on companies that misuse the "Made in USA" label.
As part of the Federal Trade Commission's "Made in the USA" month, FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, Utah's former solicitor general, visited the Utah facility of Leitner-Poma-Skytrac, a ski lift company in Tooele on Tuesday.
In recent weeks, the FTC has attempted to advance a core plank of Trump's domestic and foreign policy agenda — to strengthen American manufacturing by cracking down on false claims of products originating in the U.S.
"It is a priority of the administration right now," Holyoak told the Deseret News. "We want to ensure that Americans are confident that when they're supporting manufacturers that are creating products in the United States ... that actually is truthful and not misleading."
FTC warns USA companies
On July 8, the FTC sent a letter warning Amazon and Walmart to improve their policing of third-party sellers who claim their products are USA-made. The letter also flagged four additional companies, "reminding them to comply" with "Made in USA" requirements.
The FTC "Made in USA Labeling Rule" finalized in 2021 codified federal guidelines clarifying that if a company makes an unqualified claim that its product is American-made, then it must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.
This standard means that the final assembly, all significant processing and "virtually all ingredients or components" of the product must be made and sourced in the United States. Simply put, the product can contain almost no "foreign content."
If a company fails to meet these qualifications while making use of the "Made in USA" label, the FTC's consumer protection enforcement bureau can pursue legal action, including federal lawsuits, civil penalties, injunctions and subpoenas.
Over the past decade, the FTC has initiated at least 20 law enforcement actions to enforce "Made in USA" advertising requirements, recovering nearly $10 million, according to Holyoak.
In one example, Williams-Sonoma agreed to pay the FTC a $3.2 million civil penalty after Pottery Barn Kids and Teens products marketed as made in the U.S. were found to have been made in China.
"We hear from consumers why it's important to them that they feel like when they're supporting American manufacturing, they're supporting America and American communities," Holyoak said.
Could tariffs hurt 'Made in USA'?
In addition to enforcement actions, the FTC provides compliance counseling to educate medium and small businesses, according to Holyoak, who said they anticipate an increase in the number of businesses making "Made in USA" claims as they transition to domestic manufacturing.
Carl Skylling, the president of Skytrac, which employs more than 80 people in Tooele, said his Utah-based business has always sourced its labor, components and raw materials, including steel, from U.S. suppliers.
"We always saw it as a major advantage because we control our destiny here," Skylling said. "We don't have the core problems of shipping everything over."
Businesses across the country experienced the instability of overrelying on international supply chains during COVID-19, and now with Trump's emerging tariff regime, Skytrac is better prepared than its competitors to avoid new levies, Skylling said.
But even the manufacturers that proudly wear the "Made in USA" label have been hit indirectly by tariffs, Skylling said, because domestic suppliers, like U.S. steel plants, have taken advantage of the new import tax by raising their prices too.
Do Americans want goods made in the U.S.?
While these pressures from tariffs and other regulations are unlikely to increase the quality of products for consumers, they will push U.S. companies into "really awkward supply lines," according to Michael Kofoed, an economist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Despite some polls showing that 75% of U.S. consumers prefer U.S.-made goods, Kofoed said most surveys find that price and the value added to their life from a product are the most important factors for most American consumers.
After all, if Americans prioritized a product's country of origin above other considerations then tariffs wouldn't be needed at all to spur more consumption of more expensive domestic products, Kofoed said.
It may make sense to ramp up enforcement of "Made in USA" labels to promote an administration's agenda, but it could also create new incentives that stray from market forces that encourage high quality, low cost and maximum efficiency, according to Kofoed.
"Every time we deviate from that, we start to open a Pandora's box of unintended consequences," Kofoed said. "Maybe what happens is my competitor can't compete with me on price and efficiency because I am so good at what I do, so they're going to now take me to court to claim 'that's not American enough.'"
Trump administration looks to promote U.S. businesses
What Tuesday's tour taught Holyoak, however, is that the administration's emphasis on making products in America is not about picking firms to be winners or losers in the market, it's about promoting American entrepreneurs who are at the core of what makes the country great.
Leitner-Poma, the ski lift company that owns Skytrac, opened its new Utah facility a little over a year ago after CEO Daren Cole was impressed by the state's business climate and economic development team that connected him with supply chain partners.
But the key to their long-term investment in the state, Cole said — which includes welding wages of nearly $40 an hour, software development projects with the University of Utah and high school scholarship programs — is the people.
Holyoak, who planned to visit another Utah-based manufacturer, Liberty Safe, on Wednesday, said the purpose of their advertising regulations is to guarantee consumers can actually support "American companies and American manufacturing."
"As Utah celebrates Pioneer Day on the 24th, I'm excited to celebrate American pioneers of industry and innovation," said Holyoak, who lives in Utah. "The FTC has, and will continue to, dedicate resources to enforce against deceptive 'Made in the USA' claims, while honoring true pioneers that make honest claims of American-made products."
