Category: Campaign

Toyota is bringing the Tacoma home.

The automaker announced a $3.6 billion expansion of its San Antonio manufacturing campus — a project that will create roughly 2,000 new jobs and shift production of its popular Tacoma pickup out of Mexico and onto Texas soil. For a movement built on the belief that America can still build things, it is hard to imagine a clearer win.

The Tacoma Comes Home

For years, the Tacoma — one of the best-selling midsize pickups in the country — has been assembled at Toyota’s Baja California plant in Mexico. That is about to change.

Toyota will build a second vehicle assembly line at its San Antonio campus, and Tacoma production will gradually transition north over the next four years. When it is finished, the Tacoma will roll off the line alongside the Tundra and the Sequoia, in the same Texas plant, built by American workers.

There is something fitting about that. The Tacoma is a truck people genuinely love — the kind that gets handed down to a kid, hauled to job sites for twenty years, and driven into the mountains on weekends. Soon it will be built here.

A $3.6 Billion Bet on American Workers

The number is worth sitting with for a second. Three point six billion dollars is not a press release. It is concrete, steel, robotics, and payroll.

“Toyota’s continued investment in North America is a testament to our confidence in the region’s workforce, innovation and long-term growth potential,” said Ted Ogawa, President and CEO of Toyota Motor North America. “By expanding our San Antonio plant, we are deepening our commitment to American manufacturing, creating meaningful and sustainable jobs.”

Toyota has been building trucks in San Antonio since construction began in 2003. This expansion brings the company’s total investment in that single site to roughly $8.3 billion. That is not a company testing the water. That is a company putting down roots.

Doubling the Footprint in San Antonio

The project will add about 2.5 million square feet to the manufacturing campus, effectively doubling the size of the site by 2030.

When it is complete, Toyota’s San Antonio workforce is expected to grow to roughly 6,000 employees, supported by 23 onsite suppliers. Those direct and indirect jobs are projected to generate an estimated $8.5 billion in economic impact for the region.

What 2,000 Jobs Actually Mean

Numbers like “2,000 jobs” can start to sound abstract. They should not. Two thousand jobs is two thousand households with a steady paycheck, health insurance, and a reason to stay in the neighborhood they grew up in.

Auto assembly work remains some of the best-paying manufacturing employment in the country, and it does not require a four-year degree. And because 23 suppliers operate right on the campus, the ripple runs well past Toyota’s own payroll — into the machine shops, logistics firms, and parts makers that live or die on that plant staying busy.

A Rare Moment of Agreement

What stands out about this announcement is who showed up to celebrate it.

“Texas is where the world builds bigger, and Toyota shows it once more with a $3.6 billion expansion in San Antonio that doubles their factory footprint and creates 2,000 new jobs,” said Governor Greg Abbott. San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones called it “a significant recognition of the talent our city offers.” Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz welcomed the news, and so did State Senator Roland Gutierrez, who called it “tremendous news for our community and for the State of Texas.”

Republicans and Democrats. State and local. When a project draws praise from every direction at once, it is usually because the benefit is too obvious to argue with. Factory jobs are not a partisan issue. They are a paycheck issue.

Why This One Matters

Reshoring usually gets discussed in abstractions — supply chains, tariffs, policy frameworks. This is what it actually looks like when it works: a specific truck, a specific plant, a specific city, and a specific number of paychecks that did not exist before.

Toyota did not have to do this. Building in Mexico was working fine. They chose to bring the Tacoma to Texas because they believe American workers can build it, and because they are betting on this country for the long haul.

Every time a company decides to build here instead of somewhere else, it is a vote of confidence in American workers — and a reminder that the choice to make things in America is still very much on the table.

The Tacoma is coming home. That is worth celebrating.

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Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

Happy Fourth of July! Today, America turns 250 years old — a quarter of a millennium since a small group of people decided they’d rather build something of their own than depend on anyone else. From all of us at the Buy American Campaign, we wish you and your family a safe, happy, and proud Independence Day.

The Fourth is for cookouts, parades, fireworks, and time with the people we love. It’s also a good day to remember what we’re actually celebrating: independence — the freedom and the ability to make our own way.

A Day to Celebrate American Makers

Behind every flag waving on a front porch, every tool in the garage, and every product stamped “Made in USA” is an American worker. A welder. A seamstress. A machinist. A small-business owner who bet everything on building something here at home instead of shipping the work overseas.

Those people are the heart of this country’s story. For 250 years, Americans have made things — and made them well. The independence we celebrate today was won by people who believed we could stand on our own. Every time we choose something made in America, we keep a little of that spirit alive.

Thank You for Standing With Us

None of what this movement does would matter without you — the people who read these stories, share them with friends, and choose American-made whenever you can. You are the reason companies bringing jobs back home get noticed and celebrated.

So today, enjoy the burgers and the fireworks. And if the flag you’re flying, the cooler you packed, or the grill you’re standing over happens to be made in America — even better. Those small choices, made by millions of us, add up to something big.

Here’s to the Next 250 Years

America’s best days as a nation of builders don’t have to be behind us. With every factory that reopens, every job that comes home, and every shopper who looks for that “Made in USA” label, we write the next chapter together.

Happy 250th birthday, America. Happy Fourth of July. And thank you for helping us keep American manufacturing alive and growing.

Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

This Fourth of July, millions of American flags will fly from porches, parade floats, and front yards across the country. Here’s something worth knowing as you raise yours: there’s a good chance it was sewn by a company that has been making the Stars and Stripes in America since before the Civil War.

That company is Annin Flagmakers — the oldest and largest flag manufacturer in the United States. For nearly 180 years, Annin has done one thing better than anyone: make American flags, in America, by American hands. There may be no better brand to celebrate on Independence Day.

An American Flag, Made in America Since 1847

Annin’s story starts on the New York City waterfront around 1820, when Alexander Annin began stitching flags for the ships sailing out of the harbor. His sons, Edward and Benjamin, carried on the craft and formally founded Annin & Co. in 1847 — the year the company still counts as its beginning.

From that small shop, Annin grew into a national institution. Today the company is headquartered in New Jersey and produces more than three million full-size American flags every year. Through wars, recessions, and waves of offshoring that swept away so much of American manufacturing, Annin never stopped making the flag here at home.

Woven Into the Biggest Moments in Our History

It’s hard to overstate how often an Annin flag has been present at the defining moments of the American story. In 1849, an Annin flag flew at the inauguration of President Zachary Taylor, beginning an inaugural tradition that continued for generations of presidents.

It was an Annin-made flag that U.S. Marines raised atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in 1945 — the image captured in one of the most famous photographs ever taken. And on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag on the surface of the moon, that flag, too, was made by Annin.

Still Made by American Hands

Annin’s flags aren’t a heritage label slapped on imported goods. The company employs more than 500 American workers across three domestic factories, where the flags are cut and assembled using advanced stand-up sewing techniques developed over decades.

That matters. When you buy an Annin flag, your money supports American jobs and a supply chain that stays inside our borders — not a flag of another country’s making sold back to us as a symbol of ours. For a product this meaningful, where it’s made is the whole point.

Why This One Matters on the Fourth

There’s a quiet irony that too many “American flags” sold in the U.S. are actually imported. The flag is the one product, above all others, that ought to be made here. Annin proves it still can be — and has been, without interruption, for nearly two centuries.

So this Independence Day, as you celebrate 250 years of America, the flag you raise can be a small act of the very thing the day is about: American independence, American work, American pride.

Learn More About Annin on Buy American Campaign

We’ve put together a full profile of Annin Flagmakers — its history, its factories, its products, and where to buy American-made flags — as part of our growing directory of trusted American companies. If you’re shopping for a flag this week, start there.

👉 Read the full Annin Flagmakers profile here.

Happy Independence Day from all of us at the Buy American Campaign. Fly it proudly — and fly one that was made here.

Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb in America. For more than a century, we made them here. Then, one by one, the factories went dark — and by 2020, the last company making LED light bulbs in the United States had shut its doors. If you bought a bulb after that, it came from somewhere else.

That changed this Independence Day. On July 4th — as the country marked its 250th birthday — a factory in Fargo, North Dakota shipped its first American-made LED light bulbs. The company is called GoodBulb, and it is now believed to be the only place in America manufacturing the A19 bulb, the everyday screw-in bulb that sits in lamps and ceiling fixtures in nearly every home in the country.

A Product Invented Here, Then Made Everywhere Else

Tom Enright, GoodBulb’s founder and president, has been in the light-bulb business for 25 years. He had a front-row seat as the major manufacturers packed up and moved overseas, chasing cheaper labor. The last domestic LED bulb line closed in 2020.

That never sat right with him. The light bulb was invented in America and built here for over a hundred years. So Enright traveled the world to study how it was being done — and what he saw lit a fire.

“I was standing on the floors of these light bulb factories, and I was just in awe,” he said. “I would see 20, 30 people on a line making light bulbs. And my first thought was… wait, we can do this. I can do this better. Why can’t America do this? Why did we give up on this?”

Eight Years to Bring the Light Bulb Home

Wanting to make a bulb in America and actually doing it are two very different things. Plenty of companies tried to bring production back and couldn’t make the economics work against cheap imports. Enright knew that going in — and committed to it anyway.

GoodBulb spent eight years developing its manufacturing process before a single bulb rolled off the line. That first finished bulb came on June 12, 2026. Within weeks, the Fargo line was fully operational and capable of producing 10,000 light bulbs in a single day.

Why the A19 Bulb Matters So Much

If “A19” doesn’t mean anything to you, that’s exactly the point — it’s the bulb you never think about. It’s the standard pear-shaped, screw-in bulb that fits the lamps, fixtures, and overhead lights in almost every American household. It is the most common light bulb in the country.

That’s what makes this milestone bigger than one factory. This isn’t a niche specialty item or a luxury product. It’s something every family buys, over and over, for the life of their home. Having even one American company making it again means the supply chain for an everyday essential no longer runs entirely through overseas factories.

A July 4th Launch With Real Meaning

The timing was no accident. Enright lined up GoodBulb’s first sales with July 4th, 2026 — the nation’s 250th anniversary. There’s a certain poetry to it: the product that helped electrify American life, invented by an American, going back on sale as a Made-in-USA product on the country’s biggest birthday.

It’s the kind of story the Buy American movement exists to celebrate — not a slogan, but a real company, in a real town, putting real people to work making something we all use.

More Than a Light Bulb

GoodBulb’s story didn’t start with manufacturing — it started with a scare. Enright says he was inspired to build the company after his young son overcame a health crisis, and he turned that gratitude into a mission to give back.

The company commits a portion of every sale to providing solar lanterns to families without reliable electricity and to supporting disaster relief around the world. And Enright says he’s just getting started — another American-made bulb is already in development.

Why This One Matters

It would have been easy for Enright to keep importing bulbs like everyone else. Instead he bet eight years and a lot of stubbornness on the idea that America can still make the things it invented. On July 4th, that bet started paying off.

The next time you replace a burned-out bulb, you finally have an American-made option again — and a company worth rooting for behind it.

Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.

A new factory is announced. Five hundred jobs. Millions of dollars in investment. Construction crews get to work. Local restaurants get busier. The tax base grows. Families see new opportunities. There’s just one catch: the company isn’t American-owned.

So here’s the question we want to put to you honestly — is that a win? At Buy American Campaign, we spend a lot of time talking about American manufacturing, American workers, and products made in the USA. But this question is more complicated than it first appears, and it’s worth thinking through together.

The Case That It’s a Win

If a factory is built in America, employs American workers, pays American taxes, buys from American suppliers, and helps support an American community, many people would argue that’s exactly the kind of investment we need.

After all, the paycheck doesn’t care where the CEO lives. The mortgage payment doesn’t care where the corporate headquarters are located. The local diner doesn’t care whether the factory owner is in Detroit, Tokyo, Seoul, Munich, or Beijing. What matters, in this view, is that people are working.

The Case That Ownership Matters

Others see it differently. They argue that ownership matters because profits eventually flow somewhere. They worry that America could end up providing the labor while other countries capture the long-term financial benefits — that we become the workshop while the wealth is built elsewhere.

It’s a fair concern, and it deserves to be taken seriously. True manufacturing independence, they argue, requires both production and ownership — not just jobs on the floor, but control of the enterprise itself.

What If We Say No to Everything?

But here’s another question worth asking: what happens if we reject every factory investment that comes from overseas? Would those jobs exist at all? Would those communities be better off? Or would we simply be turning away opportunities while waiting for a perfect solution that may never arrive?

An empty factory creates no jobs. A closed factory helps no community. These are the trade-offs that towns and workers face in the real world, where the choice is often not between a foreign-owned plant and an American-owned one, but between a foreign-owned plant and no plant at all.

It Was Always About More Than Ownership

The reality is that American manufacturing has always been about more than ownership structures. It’s about workers. It’s about communities. It’s about whether a young person can build a future without leaving town. It’s about whether Main Street stays alive.

It’s about whether parents can buy a home, support a family, and send their kids to college. If a factory creates those opportunities, many Americans will call that a success. Others will insist that real independence means owning what we build. Both viewpoints deserve consideration.

So We’ll Leave You With the Question

What we know for certain is this: an empty factory creates no jobs, a closed factory helps no community, and a thriving factory — regardless of who owns it — can change lives. Beyond that, reasonable, patriotic Americans can disagree.

So we’ll leave you with the question. If a factory is built in America, employs American workers, and strengthens an American town, but the company is owned overseas — is it still an American manufacturing success story? Or is there more to the story? Tell us what you think.

Whenever possible, choose Made in USA.