That's just weird. the US is definitely a lower cost country than Norway yet my youngest son works for a company here in Norway that does quite a lot of business making metal and plastic tags of various kinds with text engraved, printed, or laser cut.
As far as I know most of the machinery is made in Europe, mostly Germany, again generally higher cost than the US. So I find it difficult to believe that it can't be done in the US.
Cost cutting seems to be done much more deeply in the US than in Europe. For example, economy class on all North American airlines is rather miserable, while most European non budget carriers have a better experience in economy.
I feel like, for better or worse, the US is sort of obsessed with figuring out how to drive costs down as low as possible, at least historically. So much early American industry was based around making mass-production more and more efficient, e.g. early assembly lines for the Ford company being an obvious case.
In a lot of ways, this is obviously good, most people benefit from lower prices, more value being created, etc, but I think it's also made it so that cheap-but-ethically-dubious manufacturing from other countries becomes increasingly appealing, especially since it's abstracted enough from the end-user to where they can comfortably say "out of site out of mind".
I'm no better; I know very well the conditions of some other countries, and think they're very bad. I also think it's bad that America fought a whole war to end slavery, and instead we just launder it through other countries. Still, despite me thinking all of this, I still generally shop for reasonable prices instead of trying to focus on ethical stuff.
Can confirm just got back from Barcelona on an Iberia flight. Evonomy on this flight was hands down better than any flight I have taken in the US. Food, service, even baggage policy was just simply a better experience. Honestly my mind was blown / food multiple meals included in price of economy seat. Just less nickel and diming and overall better experience,
The metal nametags is a very poor example of the point being attempted since I would venture a guess that there are 1000s of companies or shops in the US that can make metal nametags.
I wholly admit it's a highly specific and probably poor example, but it helps to get my point across. Even US flags and US Olympic team uniforms were Made In China until there were rightful uproars to force the issue back to the homeland.
When we can't make our own fucking blue jeans we absolutely cannot try for a technology victory.
As far as I know most of the machinery is made in Europe, mostly Germany, again generally higher cost than the US. So I find it difficult to believe that it can't be done in the US.