New Ad Campaign Urges Presidential Candidates to Hold China Accountable
Posted by SCapozzola on April 8th, 2008With race tightening, state-wide campaign demands commitment to end China’s cheating on trade laws; trade deficit costing 15,640Pennsylvania jobs per year
WASHINGTON, DC. — With jobless claims at a two year high, and the economy the top concern for voters in the tightening Pennsylvania race, the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) launched a statewide advertising and grassroots campaign today focusing on Pennsylvania job losses. The ad campaign - “China Cheats. Pennsylvania Loses.” - urges the presidential candidates to hold China accountable for its unfair international trade practices that result in Pennsylvania job losses. The campaign will run through the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary and continue in Indiana and North Carolina.
“China is a major contributor to today’s economic woes,” said AAM Director Scott Paul. “China cheats, and Pennsylvania loses. From toxic toys to nonexistent environmental standards, China continues to demonstrate that it’s not playing by the same rules as everyone else. Pennsylvanians have lost over 78,000 jobs since 2001 as a result of the trade deficit with China. We’ve heard about Iraq, NAFTA, health care, and home mortgages, but we have yet to hear any of the candidates clearly commit to solving the China crisis.”
The “China Cheats” ads will appear in seven media markets across the state, including: Allentown, Altoona, Erie, Harrisburg, Johnstown, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre. A PDF of the ad is posted at: http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/aam_pennsylvania_032708a.pdf
In addition, the campaigns are now seeing and hearing from members of AAM Action, which includes retired and active employees. AAM Action coordinators are working across the state to press the candidates on trade and China issues. These efforts have begun to show results. Recently, an attendee at Hillary Clinton’s Greensburg, PA town hall meeting asked a question about what the Senator would do about “imports from China.” At a subsequent event in Raleigh, N.C., Senator Clinton said she would “get tough on China.” In an Indiana television ad Senator Obama posed in front of a closed steel mill to demonstrate concerns over outsourced manufacturing jobs.
“With the race tightening, the candidates cannot dodge this issue any longer,” said Paul. “The economy is the number one concern for Pennsylvania voters. Our ‘China Cheats’ campaign features a hard hitting, direct ad that makes it clear that when Washington lets China win, workers in cities like Pittsburgh and Allentown lose. The campaign will follow the candidates until primary day, pushing them to make a real commitment to solving the China problem.”
AAM will also launch CandidateWatch (http://candidatewatch.manufacturethis.org/), a blog that will track what the candidates are saying, or not saying, about their plans to stop China from cheating on international trade laws.
THE FACTS:
The damaging effects of unfair trade are clear across the state. AAM’s analysis of Economic Policy Institute data found that Pennsylvania lost 78,200 jobs from 2001-2006 (all sectors) as a result of the U.S. trade deficit with China [source: EPI, ‘Costly Trade with China’], for an average of 15,640 lost jobs per year. Using an identical analysis, AAM found that Pennsylvania lost 44,173 jobs from 1993-2004 (all sectors) as a result of NAFTA, for an average of 4,016 jobs lost per year [source: EPI, ‘Revisiting NAFTA’].
“If the presidential candidates want to save Pennsylvania jobs, they should commit to fighting China’s illegal trade practices such as dumping, subsidies, and currency manipulation,” said Paul, noting that the U.S. racked up record annual trade deficits in 2007 with both China ($256 billion) and its NAFTA partners ($138 billion). “We can no longer allow China to chip away at the foundation of America.”
A state-by-state breakout of U.S. jobs lost to China is available at: www.americanmanufacturing.org/inyourstate/
ABOUT AAM
The non-partisan, non-profit Alliance for American Manufacturing is a labor-management partnership between the United Steelworkers and major manufacturers, including Pennsylvania-based United States Steel Corporation and Allegheny Technologies.
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April 10th, 2008 at 3:00 am
When expressed in per capita terms (divided by the population of the country in question), one finds that our trade deficit with China is rather unremarkable. Using 2006 trade data, our per capita trade deficit in manufactured goods with China ranked nineteenth. Eighteen other countries were worse. The following is a list of the top 20 per capita trade deficits in manufactured goods in 2006:
Rank Country Per Capita Deficit (2006)
1. Ireland -$4,306
2. Sweden -860
3. Trinidad -832
4. Japan -778
5. Taiwan -717
6. Switzerland -657
7. Israel -604
8. Malaysia -582
9. Germany -541
10. Austria -530
11. Denmark -522
12. Mexico -346
13. Finland -301
14. S. Korea -297
15. Italy -286
16. Brunei -222
17. Lesotho -215
18. Thailand -176
19. China -172
20. Jordan -166
The point here is not that our trade deficit with China isn’t a problem. Rather, the point is that it’s exactly what we should have expected when we took the same trade policy that was a proven failure all over the world and suddenly applied it to a country with one sixth of the world’s population.
China isn’t the problem. The problem is a trade policy that’s invested lock, stock and barrel in an economic theory - Ricardo’s “principle of comparative advantage” (published in 1817) - that is overly simplistic and flawed. It is flawed because it does not take into consideration the role of population density and its effect on per capita consumption, or what happens when a nation attempts to engage in free trade in manufactured goods with another that is over-populated and has a market that is emaciated by low per capita consumption.
Of the twenty countries listed in the table above, eighteen are much more densely populated than the U.S. (Only Sweden and Finland are less densely populated.) And thirteen are countries that are comparatively wealthy (like Japan, Germany, Korea, Ireland, Switzerland, and many others), debunking the myth that it is cheap foreign labor that drives our trade deficit.
If we are to be successful in arguing for a return to a balance of trade, we must have a thorough understanding of the root cause of our problem and lay blame where it belongs - a trade policy that is tantamount to economic suicide.
Pete Murphy
Author, Five Short Blasts
April 16th, 2008 at 8:08 am
I guess everyone has forgotten that President Bill Clinton inherited NAFTA. It was about one of the last thing President Bush 41 signed before leaving office. This left President Bill to deal with it. However according to David Gergen, reporter, Hillary was not in favor of it and was even disgusted with it because it was interferring with her health plan.