Trade between affiliates of companies located in different countries. Much intra-firm trade consists of trade in parts, components, and other inputs from which final products are made. An example of intra-firm trade is an American automobile manufacturer shipping] an engine from one of its factories in the United States to an assembly plant it owns in Mexico for placement in an automobile that is being built there. Because the final market for many of the goods traded within firms is the United States, and because many of the foreign factories of U.S. multinational companies have replaced factories in the United States, U.S. intra-firm exports often are associated with the destruction, not the creation, of American jobs.