But because the American government doesn't subsidize industry in the way it does agricultural production, the actual spinning and weaving of the cotton takes place in lower-wage countries – Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, China, India, China, China, sometimes even China. And then the finished shirts, called blanks, are usually sent to Europe or the United States for screen printing and then sold. You would think the most expensive part of this process is the part where we ship this across the Pacific Ocean, turn it into this, and then ship it back across the Pacific Ocean. But you'd be wrong. Wholesale t-shirt blanks can cost as little as $3. The expense is in the printing, the retail side of things, and paying the designer at Thought Bubble who was tasked with the difficult job of creating a mongrel who is at once cute and terrifying. So contemporary global trade is pretty anarchic and unregulated, at least by international institutions and national governments.