China Policy Gets Fresh Attention From Business, Labor
CongressDaily
TRADE
China Policy Gets Fresh Attention From Business, Labor
Friday, Nov. 7, 2008
by Peter Cohn
Today's dismal jobs numbers thrust U.S. trade policy with China into the spotlight as the manufacturing sector took the biggest hit, accounting for more than one-third of October's 240,000 job losses. Unions and affected manufacturers hope President-elect Obama will take action to force China to revalue the yuan, which they say has supported artificially lower-priced imports that have displaced U.S. products. "The 111th Congress and the incoming Obama administration will need to focus on longer-term strategies to shrink our job-killing trade deficit -- especially with China -- and revitalize the manufacturing base, which shed 90,000 jobs last month alone," said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which represents steel companies and workers.
During the presidential primaries, Obama signed on to legislation backed by Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Jim Bunning, R-Ky., to impose countervailing duties on imports from China and other countries that benefit from undervalued currency. That bill and others like it died in this Congress because of staunch opposition from the business community and President Bush. Backers say that with Obama headed to the White House, the measure has greater momentum. The China Currency Coalition, which represents workers and companies that make products ranging from chemicals to textiles to machine tools, wrote Obama Wednesday that the global economic crisis represents an opportunity to take a firm hand with China. "The CCC's members sincerely trust that with your backing and leadership this legislation will quickly become law in the new Congress. U.S. companies and workers cannot compete with undervalued exchange-rate misalignment and should not be expected to," wrote co-chairmen Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO and Douglas Bartlett, chairman of Bartlett Manufacturing Co., a maker of printed circuit boards based in Obama's home state of Illinois.
Wary business groups are making pre-emptive strikes in regard to a potential "get tough on China" strategy. Members of the Engage China coalition, including trade associations for the financial services sector, urged Obama in a letter Thursday to send an economic adviser along with Treasury Secretary Paulson to the fifth round of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue in Beijing Dec. 4-5. "Fair and competitive access to China's fast-growing middle class and business sector represents an enormous commercial opportunity for American manufacturers, farmers, and service providers, with major implications for U.S. economic growth and job creation," the letter states. Separately, the U.S.-China Business Council noted in a set of policy recommendations to Obama that the trade deficit with the rest of the world has grown much more rapidly over the last decade than with China. They also noted that China is the third-largest export market for U.S. products after Canada and Mexico, with by far the fastest export growth -- 302 percent -- since 2000.