In 1987 the G6 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK) accounted for 55% of U.S. goods imports. That same year, China, Mexico and Brazil only accounted for 8% of imports.
In 2010 the U.S. reached a milestone–for the first time, imports from China/Mexico/Brazil exceeded imports from the G6 countries. In the year ending March 2011, imports from China/Mexico/Brazil equaled 32% of goods imports, compared to 31% for the G^ countries. Here’s another way of seeing the same thing. Please note that OPEC’s share, and the share of “all other countries,” don’t change very much. It’s really the G6 versus a handful of low-cost importers.
One final note. The shift in sourcing is most likely happening because the goods made in China/Mexico/Brazil are less expensive than the same goods made in France/Germany/UK. Unfortunately, the BLS import price statistics are not able to pick up the price drops from shifts in country sourcing.
Suppose for example that goods made in China are sold for one-third less than the same goods made in Japan. Then for the same physical quantity of imports, that shift in sourcing will cause the nominal value of imports to be one-third lower. This imparts a significant downward bias to the import penetration ratio.
Mandel on Innovation and Growth 
Smart business people should pay attention to this – with slow growth in the U.S. these are the countries with potential market opportunities.
The answer is maybe. The price indices will also reflect the point that goods purchased in the economy will be cheaper. For example the deflator for GAFO goods — retail sales of department store type goods — has fallen every year since 1985, typiceally at a minus 1% to -3% rate..
I know you believe that the price deflaters fail to capture the lower costs of imports,
but you have not demonstrated the truth of this statement sufficiently to convince me.
Moreover, if it is true it would be inconsistent with your belief that we have significantly overstated growth. If imports were really cheap than our standard of living would have risen by more than the data states.
Remember, final products only account for about half of imports. The other half of imports are energy and industrial raw materials where prices have been rising sharply for
the last 15 years or so.