Although the company has orchestrated heaps of positive media by stocking a few items of local produce in its U.S. stores, what makes Wal-Mart Wal-Mart is its global supply chain. The company is not so much a retailer as a distributor. Its market power comes from its ability to acquire goods in one location and distribute them across the planet with a remarkable degree of precision and efficiency. If buying locally from South African producers became a condition of the merger, Wal-Mart would have to drop the deal. Worried about losing Massmart and, with it, a launching pad for all of Africa, Wal-Mart in its closing arguments raised the threat of a WTO action if the Competition Tribunal pursued the sourcing condition. Although the question of global trade agreements had not surfaced in the debate before, it became a central theme of the media coverage during the tribunal's final two weeks of deliberation.