Yesterday’s NY Times looked at the “competitive pressure” on U.S. companies coming from companies in emerging markets like China, Brazil, India and Russia. In the bottom-line world of global business, gaining the competitive edge, even if it means exploiting cheap labor, is a reality.

“Some, particularly the Chinese companies, have mainly used cheap labor to undercut established companies.”

However, that reality aside, we have to disagree with the view expressed by Harold L. Sirkin of the Boston Consulting Group that “we’ve responded.”

“But Mr. Sirkin is optimistic that the United States economy will continue to flourish. “There are a lot of imports coming in from China today, but what’s our unemployment rate?” he said. “It isn’t 43 percent. We’ve responded.”

Far too many trade violations go unpunished, that’s the reality. In places like China, going around the system is the norm, not the exception. And, it’s American workers who are losing. Losing jobs, losing wages, losing opportunities and facing the risk of losing a secure future for their children.

We’ve not responded. More has to be done on the part of the Administration, the Congress and other policy makers, to strengthen our trade policies. And, those policies have to hold violators accountable when they don’t follow the rules.

We’re nowhere close to responding, and too much is at stake for us to feel otherwise.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Holding China Accountable, Economic Security, Enforcing Trade Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.