If Wal-Mart Can’t Bring Manufacturing Back to America, How Can Trump?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been good to America’s Great Horned Owl. Not the real bird -- the plastic one.

As part of a much-hyped effort to bring factory jobs back to the U.S., Wal-Mart persuaded tiny Dalen Products, of Knoxville, Tennessee, to shift production of the garden scarecrow back home from China. The only catch: not many jobs followed.

And that’s often been the story of Wal-Mart’s campaign. As the world’s biggest buyer of thousands of factory items, from hunting rifles to bicycles, it’s in as good a position as any company to influence U.S. manufacturing -- for better or worse: the retailer is widely blamed for sending hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas since the 1990s.

More from Bloomberg.