Re:Some new iMacs marked as being 'Assembled in USA'
by joe_the_user on Monday December 03, 2012 @04:31AM
(#4864641)
I visit Saipan last spring (home to 90% of the population) and it was rather sad. All the factories were closed, tourism was petering out and there were shopping centers being recaptured by the jungle.
The Northern end of Island is spectacularly beautiful and Japanese tourists still would visit there. In the whole of the Micronesia area, Asian tourists outnumber Americans by something like 20 to 1 and the US seems increasingly irrelevant even on the Islands it owns. Interesting.
Accordingly, products made in the CNMI may be labeled as "Made in USA" (subject to the same rules I cited above). But after the labor scandals of the 1990s, many well known clothing brands that kept their factories there switched to labels like "Made in Northern Marianas, USA".
Since 2009, the CNMI no longer makes its own immigration policy. [0] The islands are now subject to federal immigration law, and all provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act will be in effect there from 2014. By that date, the CNMI's workforce will be governed by the same laws as elsewhere in the United States and there will no longer be any real basis for controversy over its "Made in USA" labeling.
0. http://www.dhs.gov/commonwealth-northern-mariana-islands-tra...