So is a smaller American-owned company, the Columbia Gas System.

The interests of overseas factories that belong to American-owned companies would be an even lower priority.

Finally, the 4 percent is only half of what American-owned companies earned on their investments within this country in the same period.

They purchase inputs - raw materials, semifinished and finished goods - just as American-owned companies do.

And foreign workers employed in American-owned companies abroad should demand no less of their American employers.

Another fraud, known as the 861 position, asserts that wages paid by American-owned companies are exempt from tax.

Why, he asked, couldn't the State Department place its order with a "100 percent American-owned company"?

And, he said, foreign companies will continue to expand in the United States because of tax rules that favor them over American-owned companies.

But officials also indicated that they expected the majority of the imports to come from American-owned companies.

They live in hostels above the factories, 10 to a room, returning half their wages to the American-owned company for "room" and meals.