I'm aware that Heinz imports products. I'm also aware that Heinz exports more products from the United States than it imports.
OK, I'll try to explain this slowly...
Heinz is an international company that is NOT run by John Kerry or Teresa Heinz Kerry.
The Snopes bit mentions ketchup specifically because of this "W" ketchup BS that was going around the intranet.
Also note this: "It makes little sense from either an economic or a freshness standpoint to be shipping fruits and vegetables and/or finished food products halfway around the world rather than producing them locally.)"
Those products that are imported into the United States may well be manufactured overseas because the US supply of the main ingredient isn't grown in sufficient quantities in the US.
Say, for example (hypotethical, I don't know if Heinz offers this product), you manufacture mango chutney. US production of mangos is miniscule. Do you think it's smarter to manufacture the product where the mangos are, and then ship a shelf-stable, physically durable product to market, or is it more intelligent to ship highly perishable and delicate fruits thousands of miles to another nation where then are then turned into mango chutney?
This has been standard operating procedure in the food industry for many, many years, and as is noted, it is NOT an exampe of "loss of good American jobs through the collective evil machinations of heartless corporations and foreigners."
Yes, Kerry was a proponent of NAFTA. But so were a LOT of Republicans, and Heinz, Coke, Kraft, and all of the other food companies have been practicing "diversified production" techniques long before NAFTA was even a blip on the radar, or clueless people tried to link Heinz Foods with John Kerry in some sort of evil cabal.
