Confusing Surprises

Shannon ran out to get me some steel wool so I can clean up the old cast iron skillets, season them, and make some corned beef hash!  As if it wasn't confusing enough that there wasn't any steel wool at Winco, he found this awesome labelling on the steel wool at Wal-Mart:

U.S. Steel, Product of Japan

So, we made some steel, sent it to Japan, where it was made into steel wool, then they sent it back to us?  Maybe this is just me being crazy, but wouldn't it make more sense to keep the steel in the US and make the steel wool ourselves?  I could maybe see sending the steel someplace where the wages are really low, like Southeast Asia, to save the company a couple pennies, but Japan?  They're a huge economic force with minimum wage restrictions like we are!  The more I find about the business of importing and exporting products to and from the US, the more confusing the whole thing seems.  At least it's becoming more and more clear why America's economic crisis affected the entire world.