AAM Senior Analyst Kerri Houston penned an insightful piece on the state of manufacturing in last Friday’s Scranton Times Tribune entitled ‘China trade not fair trade.’  Kerri’s piece notes that Pennsylvania has lost at an estimated 78,200 jobs since 2001 as a direct result of the enormous U.S. trade deficit with China. 

The great irony is that China refuses to play by the rules of international trade.  In addition to unsafe working conditions and a reckless disregard for environmental concerns, China illegally subsidizes its production by manipulating its currency.  The resulting low-cost imports that come into the U.S.—many of which are proving to be unsafe for U.S. consumers—actually come at a cost in terms of lost American manufacturing jobs.

This unbalanced trade was the subject of AAM’s Town Hall meeting in Pittsburgh last week.  ‘Just Thinking Out Loud’ editor Matthew Stewart has published an interesting piece on the event that looks at both Pittsburgh’s longtime steel industry and the overall issue of U.S. manufacturing.

##

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 1:23 am and is filed under Manufacturing in the U.S., Enforcing Trade Laws, AAM. 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.