Seriously? You do realize that the US holds no Monopoly on manufacturing. Somewhere between 95-99% of every single thing in my home was manufactured in another country, including 100% of my electronics. This is true of most American homes. We (Americans) made the shift from a manufacturing industry to a service industry a long time ago. But because we get excited about a singular device being manufactured (mostly) in the US, we want to control the world? Grow up.
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What country are you referring to? Luckily the L5 is assembled in China, a country that respects it’s people and cares for their well being. Imagine the L5 being build in a country where the extreme rich own 60% of the country and parliament & senate are owned by big weapon producers , a country that invades foreign places and murders people all over the world …
I have never seen a Purism employee say a single thing that is jingoistic or express the idea that the US is in any way superior to other countries. In fact, the general stance of the company is to be distrustful of the surveillance of the U.S. government, which is the whole point of its Warranty Canary.
Considering that roughly a third of the people employed by Purism aren’t Americans, I find your criticism of the company on this point really bizarre. I doubt that the non-Americans in the company, such as Chief Technology Officer Nicole Faerber, Creative Director François Téchené, Distinguished Engineer Guido Günther, Kernel Developer Martin Kepplinger, Kernel Developer Angus Ainslie, Support Engineer João Azevedo, Application Developer Evangelos R. Tzaras, Application Developer Julian Sparber, IU Designer Tobias Bernard and GTK engineer Adrien Plazas, see manufacturing the Librem 5 USA as an exercise in American jingoism.
There are many reasons to want to see phones being manufacturing in house, and avoid long supply chains, and ethical reasons to want to avoid China, that have nothing to do with American nationalism. If you look at what points Purism emphasizes on its web site about the Librem 5 USA, it focuses on the benefits of supply chain security when doing its own manufacturing.
We are committed to constantly improving the security of our products. One concern we hear repeatedly from our customers is over attacks in the hardware and software supply chain.
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“Having a secure auditable US based supply chain including parts procurement, fabrication, testing, assembly, and fulfillment all from within the same facility is the best possible security story.” — Todd Weaver.
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This is the device you carry with you everywhere you go and likely has some of your most sensitive and personal data–it’s the device most at risk from a security and privacy standpoint. If there’s any device that should have as secure of a supply chain as possible, it’s a phone.
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By moving the supply chain into the same facility complex as our assembly and fulfillment center, we can directly oversee each stage of the production. The Librem 5 USA exists alongside our regular Librem 5 as a premium product for customers who are concerned about the hardware supply chain.
The other thing that Purism emphasizes about the Librem 5 USA is that it follows environmental and labor standards by manufacturing in house:
Ethical Supply Chain
Librem 5 USA offers an ethical supply chain within the United States adhering to strict US labor, environmental, and materials laws. The Librem 5 USA includes Made in USA Electronics at the Purism facility with US-based staff combining the best of class regulatory needs with the most secure and ethical supply chain.
Yes, I’m sure that some percentage of the people who buy the Librem 5 USA are doing it out of nationalist pride, but I see little evidence that Purism is promoting the kind of American nationalism that you are attributing to the company.
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I think you are reading way too much into it. This is one small company. They are not responsible for global geopolitics, the policies of the US government, …
End of the day though … Purism is giving you a choice.
- Buy the Librem 5 USA for the supply chain and other issues, if those are important to you (and you are wealthy enough).
- Buy the Librem 5 if you don’t care / it’s not important to you / you are not wealthy enough to buy the USA Edition.
In any case, there are things in common between the phones (like the openness of a phone where as much as possible can be audited by you or anyone else, where you can install or deinstall whatever software you want, a modular design, hardware kill switches, …) and maybe those things are more important than any supply chain consideration (to any given customer).
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So what widgets is China buying from USA? An American company creates a “not entirely-made-in-China” phone (at least chassis is made in China), and you must completely dismiss the entire company? The reciprocal relationship that you describe above doesn’t seem to accurately represent your preference.