Control Network Newsletter
Understanding the "Buy American Act"
In January, President Biden signed an executive order to strengthen the Buy American Act (BAA) to increase federal purchases of American-made products. This was done to encourage and increase the amount of manufacturing done in the United States. To an electronics manufacturer like Contemporary Controls, what does it mean to provide a domestically manufactured product?
The BAA was first passed in 1933 to help get us out of the depression. This was in the days of vacuum tubes powering our radios. The BAA requires compliant products to be manufactured in the United States and have 50% of their components sourced in the United States. For the electronics industry today, few products can claim that 50% of their components are sourced in the United States. However, the federal government also requires that the products purchased must be reasonably priced and readily available. To that end, a commercial off the shelf (COTS) product manufactured in the United States compiles with the BAA requirements.
For a product to have the United States as the country of origin (COO), the product must be manufactured in the United States. Being "manufactured" is defined as being "substantially transformed" by the manufacturing process in the final stages of production. We follow the rules or origin as stated in the United States - Mexico - Canada (USMCA) trade agreement act (TAA).
Our products are made in the United States of domestic and imported components. Because our SMT manufacturing process creates a harmonized code shift from those of the components to that of a finished good, the products' country of origin (COO) is the United States.
For contractors who are submitting a bid for a federal project, we can supply a USMCA COO certificate to support BAA or TAA compliance on those products we claim as Made in USA.
Visit our USMCA page to learn more.