There's some parallel between steel tools and bike frames with regards to things moving to Taiwan. Both things like wrenches/ratchets/sockets and steel bike frames moved largely to Taiwan 20+ years ago.
Guess what? Taiwan got really good at making both. So in the tool community, you have lots of comparisons drawn between the US and Taiwan and China, with the narrative that as far as Asian manufactured tools, the "good stuff" comes out of Taiwan, and the not-usually-as-good out of China.
There's a similar narrative on bike frames. The interesting thing is that Taiwan didn't just get good at steel bike frames, but on the aluminum and carbon fiber successors as well.
I would frankly rather Craftsman be a sustainable brand manufactured out of Taiwan with a warranty and continuity of product to back it, but unfortunately the collapse of Sears and the subsequent trading of the Craftsman label has made it more of a liability.
This started in the 60s, when manufacturing started moving to Japan. "Made in Japan" was the mark of garbage (I inherited some of those old Japanese-made tools from my Dad. I only keep them for nostalgia reasons.)
Then in the 80s Japan got very good at manufacturing. And they got expensive as a result. So cheap manufacturing moved to Taiwan, and "Made in Taiwan" became the mark of garbage.
Now Taiwan has become a very good manufacturer, but it's expensive, so cheap manufacturing moved to China.
And now high-end Japanese brands outsource their manufacturing to...China.
In the 1870s, Britain found cheap, low-quality German imports were being mislabelled as British. "Made in Germany" also started as a mark of low quality.
Guess what? Taiwan got really good at making both. So in the tool community, you have lots of comparisons drawn between the US and Taiwan and China, with the narrative that as far as Asian manufactured tools, the "good stuff" comes out of Taiwan, and the not-usually-as-good out of China.
There's a similar narrative on bike frames. The interesting thing is that Taiwan didn't just get good at steel bike frames, but on the aluminum and carbon fiber successors as well.
I would frankly rather Craftsman be a sustainable brand manufactured out of Taiwan with a warranty and continuity of product to back it, but unfortunately the collapse of Sears and the subsequent trading of the Craftsman label has made it more of a liability.