Anybody seen China? Anywhere?
Posted by SCapozzola on February 28th, 2008Well, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had at it again Tuesday night at a debate in snowy Cleveland, picking away at healthcare and Iraq. And as per their current, Ohio-centric rhetoric, they danced around their previously mixed statements on NAFTA. Both agreed, however, that the trade deal should be “renegotiated.”
A funny thing, though: with both candidates so committed to saving American jobs, they somehow missed the big elephant in the room: China. The country that racked up a $256 billion trade surplus with the U.S. in 2007 was mentioned only once, in passing, during the entire debate. No matter that Ohio has been demolished by factory job losses, and that “China Cheats” in world trade by using such illegal practices as dumping, subsidies, and currency manipulation. No—Hillary and Obama worried away the time with thoughts on labor and environmental provisions for foreign workers.
A recent study by EPI found that Ohio lost more than 66,000 jobs between 2001-2006 just because of the U.S. trade deficit with China. Ohio also has lost the 3rd largest number of manufacturing jobs of any state in the U.S.—more than 242,200 lost in the past seven years alone (roughly 1/4th of all Ohio factory jobs). Only California and Michigan have seen more factory jobs lost in that time.
In the bigger picture, the U.S. has lost more than 3.3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs since 2000, and more than 40,000 factories have closed in the past 10 years. EPI’s report noted that America’s lopsided trade deficit with China cost the U.S. 1.8 million jobs from 2001-2006.
The end result of all of this is more unsafe imports from China and a greater dependence on foreign factories to produce both our every day consumer goods and military hardware.
Regarding China: Since Tim Russert won’t do it, it’s up to Ohioans to say, “Before you get my vote, I want to know how you’ll stop China’s cheating.”
Voters want presidential candidates who will stand up for American manufacturing and emphatically state that they will hold China accountable. Anything else is just prattle.
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February 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I wanted to announce a new community blog, http://www.economicpopulist.org. Anyone can write a blog post and have it appear on the front page. There are also forums for quick discussion. We already have two very good economists blogging on the site and hope others will join. You have articles that we agree with and we link to your blog.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:45 am
You folks are being much too polite. The peoples republic of china is a communist country where sweat-shops, child labor, prison labor, and human rights violations prevail. Religious freedom is denied and mandatory abortion is law. The environment is ravaged daily, its workers make 70 cents an hour and trade unionists are jailed. Job loss to china is more than double that of Nafta in half the time span. The catholic church is purchasing crucifixes made in sweat shops there. Our tax dollars are subsidizing corporate relocations to china. It is our own department of commerce that isn’t enforcing trade law. It is our own president that ignores determinations of the international trade commission. Remove the gloves.