HF and Northern tool seem to be competing to see who can garner the market place. I haven't been to HF but once in a long time but the time I went there I had noticed a huge improvement from what they had to offer say 15 years ago. Northern tool sells a lot of the same name tools as HF plus has a 2nd line of higher quality for some things. More often than not when I can not find something at an Industrial supply or if I feel the price is beyond my means I can find what I am looking for at Northern Tool.
Sad about Craftsman tools but the same can be said about Peterson becoming Irwin and Stanley or Challenger.
At one time I had a lot of Spero brand tools I am fairly sure they started in Germany but at one time I bought a 32 pc set of combination wrenches some of them had Germany forged into the body a couple had USA and the rest had China. I couldn't tell any difference in quality in any of them. A 6 point Spero brand impact socket set was China while the 12 point 1/2" drive deep well set was German.
I suspect that Many of the used to be USA exclusive tools now being made in China or other countries are for the most part made to as near the same standards as possible. Particularly if they are not made exclusively in China.