Harbor Freight is not exactly forthcoming about where its Chicago Electric Tools branded merchandise is made. Looking through various reviews from consumers, there have been repeated occasions where users commented on the tools they received, saying that their products had “made in China” labels. Searching through reseller sites like eBay allows you to see the product packaging, where the “made in China” label is sometimes visible.
The tools being made in China also follows the common Harbor Freight trend with other private-label brands. For example, its U.S, General toolboxes say that they’re distributed by Harbor Freight Tools of Calabasas, California, but that they are, in fact, made in China.
Harbor Freight has, at one point, addressed the question. Though this page was removed from its website sometime after May of 2022, the internet, as we all know, is forever. The company’s statement asserts that, “All of our tools are designed and built in partnership with the same factories that many of our top leading competitors use.”
What Harbor Freight declares in the statement may be true, but it still stands to reason that this is information that some consumers may want to know. The same page also clarifies that all tools have a 90-day “no questions asked” guarantee, and links to a different statement about the company’s corporate integrity and ethical behavior. That page, which does still exist, is the Transparency Act Disclosure required by all companies that operate in California.
