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By David Sirota
Political journalist, best-selling author and syndicated newspaper columnist

Many economic Nostradamuses have long predicted that the epitaph on America’s tombstone will ultimately read, “Made In China.” But casual observers probably didn’t think the funeral procession would happen this fast. In the last year, though, most have wised up. Thanks to a spate of mind-blowing headlines, we are learning that the Chinese invasion isn’t just a distant possibility — it’s happening right now.

First, in February, ABC News reported that almost every Americana-themed trinket sold in the Smithsonian Institute is made in China. Then news hit that San Francisco is importing its new bay bridge from China. Then came the New York Times dispatch about the Big Apple awarding Chinese state-subsidized firms huge taxpayer-funded contracts to “renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium.”

Astounding as all of that is, it was quickly topped by news last week reminding us that the new Martin Luther King monument in Washington was designed by a Chinese government sculptor and assembled by low-wage Chinese workers. (more…)

Travis McArthur

By Travis McArthur
Public Citizen Trade and Finance Researcher

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Han Duk-soo, Korean Ambassador to the U.S., discussed aspects of the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) at a panel on Thursday. They talked about deadlines, little anecdotes, and so forth, but what Ambassador Han had to say about how the Korea FTA would impact Korean domestic economic policymaking was most intriguing. He said:

But more important for Korea is that we develop our economy by opening it to global competition. The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and 1998 was a good lesson for us. What the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement offers the Korean people is a comprehensive legally-binding reform package that will lead to the opening of our market.

Here Ambassador Han alludes to what Thomas Friedman called the “Golden Straightjacket”. The idea is that you should force harsh economic policies on countries, often through some less-than-democratic means (in this case, a trade agreement that has been negotiated in secret), and they will eventually prosper. Ambassador Han referred to these “painful prescriptions” in an earlier speech here. (In the first chapter of Bad Samaritans, Dr. Ha-Joon Chang does a great job of exploding the Golden Straightjacket myth while demonstrating that Friedman’s beloved Lexus in his Lexus and the Olive Tree could never have been produced without significant government involvement in the economy.) (more…)

Dave Johnson

By Dave Johnson
Fellow with Campaign for America’s Future

Today the US Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk filed two complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The first alleges that China is keeping American credit and debit card companies out of their electronic payment market. The second is a “dumping” (selling under cost) complaint on steel products.

“We are concerned that China is breaking its trade commitments to the United States and other WTO partners,” Kirk said in announcing the two cases.

This is a big deal, because it tells China that we are willing to fight back. But Sen. Charles Grassley said this was not enough,

“The administration should go one step further and bring a case against China’s unfair currency manipulation at the WTO. Everyone knows China is manipulating its currency to gain an unfair advantage in international trade,” Grassley said.

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post, President Obama Enforces Trade Law In China Tire Case!, celebrating President Obama’s decision to enforce the ITC’s recommendation to impose tariffs on Chinese tire imports.

What was the result of that decision to actually enforce trade laws? Did the world end? Did it start a “trade war” with China? No, the result was that jobs started to return.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing is running this full page ad in a few newspapers today:

AAM explains: (click through for links) (more…)

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Long-suffering victim is hardly the American image.  Paul Revere, Mother Jones, John Glenn, Martin Luther King Jr. — those are American icons. Bold, wry, justice-seeking.

So how is it that America finds herself in the position of schoolyard patsy, woe-is-me casualty of China’s illegal trade practices that are destroying U.S. renewable energy manufacturing and foreclosing an energy-independent future?

Come on, America. Show some of that confident pioneer spirit. Stand up for yourself. Tell China that America isn’t going to hand over its lunch money anymore; international trade law will be enforced now.

That’s the demand the United Steelworkers (USW) union made this week when it filed a 5,800-page suit detailing how China violates a wide variety of World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

80 boxes containing USW trade case being delivered to U.S. Trade Representative

The case, now in the hands of the U.S. Trade Representative, shows how China uses illegal land grants, prohibited low-interest loans and other outlawed measures to pump up its renewable energy industries and facilitate export of those products at artificially low prices to places like the United States and Europe.

The U.S. aids renewable energy industries, like solar cell and wind turbine manufacturers, but no where near the extent that China does. And the American aid lawfully goes to renewable manufacturers that produce for domestic consumption. China, by contrast, illegally subsidizes industries that export, a strategy that kills off competition.

The USW recognizes and appreciates that trade with China has lifted millions there out of poverty. But truly fair trade would benefit workers in both China and the United States. And that is what the USW is demanding.

The USW is far from alone in accusing China of violations. New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher described them in a story Sept. 8, titled “On Clean Energy, China Skirts Rules.” It ends with this quote from Zhao Feng, general manger of Hunan Sunzone Optoelectronics, a two-year-old solar panel manufacturer that exports nearly 95 percent of its products to Europe and is opening offices in three U.S. cities to push into the American market:

“Who wins this clean energy race really depends on how much support the government gives.”

The U.S. isn’t providing support that violates WTO regulations. China is. And it’s  hundreds of billions — $216 billion from China’s stimulus package, another $184 billion to be spent through 2020, $172 million in research and development over the past four years.

Bradsher’s story details illegal aid given Sunzone and says that it’s common, not exceptional. It includes China turning over land to Sunzone for a third of the market price and government-controlled banks granting Sunzone low-interest loans that the provincial government helps Sunzone repay.

In addition, the USW suit notes that China, which accounts for 93 percent of the world’s production of so-called rare earth materials like dysprosium and terbium essential for green energy technology, has severely restricted their export. That practice, illegal under WTO rules, forces some foreign companies to move manufacturing to China to get access.

And when corporations move, China routinely – and illegally — mandates they transfer technology to Chinese partners, which often means U.S.-tax-dollar-supported research and development benefits China.

That is one reason China rose to first in the world in clean energy so quickly.  China now leads globally in producing solar panels. It doubled its wind power capacity in one year – 2009. Worldwide, Chinese manufacturers supply at least half of all hydropower projects and fabricate 75 percent of all compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, BP shut down its solar panel manufacturing plant in Maryland this year and Evergreen Solar of Marlboro, Mass., plans to close its American plant, eliminating 300 U.S. jobs. Both are moving manufacturing to China.

Germany’s Solar World still manufactures in Europe and the United States, and its chief executive, Frank A. Asbeck, told Bradsher the German solar industry association is investigating whether to file a suit of its own to try to stop China’s illegal practices:

“China is cordoning off its own solar market to fend off international competition while arming its industry with a bottomless pile of subsidies and boundless lines of credit.”

The Times story also says China’s “aggressive government policies” are designed to ensure “Chinese energy security.”

China’s illegal aggression to secure its energy independence and dominate world production of green technology threatens the energy security of the United States.

America turned to renewables not just to diminish climate change but also to reduce dependence on foreign oil, an addiction that has entangled the U.S. in costly and bloody wars.

If the United States can’t build its own renewable energy products, it will forfeit the next generation high technology industry and good manufacturing jobs, and it will remain dangerously beholden to foreign nations for energy.

China agreed to follow international regulations when it joined the World Trade Organization. This pledge was crucial because China’s economy is government-controlled, very different from the free market economies of the United States and most Western nations.

Faced with blatant rule-flouting that has cost USW members their jobs and threatens to cost their children high-technology manufacturing of the future, the USW is demanding the American government put a stop to it.

That is how a true American acts. Americans have a sense of justice. They follow the rules and expect trading partners to do the same. When they don’t, Americans do something about it.

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

Barack Obama proved Friday he’s got grit. He enforced trade laws.

These are special trade safeguard rules, called “Section 421,”  that the Chinese had agreed to obey to gain entrance to the World Trade Organization (WTO). They are, however, laws that had gone unenforced by the U.S. in the past.

President Obama used these safeguard rules to imposed tariffs on tires manufactured in China and imported into the U.S., following a recommendation by the International Trade Commission, an independent, bi-partisan group. The action made Obama the first president to execute sanctions under “Section 421.”

The International Trade Commission recommended sanctions under “Section 421” four times before Obama took office. Nothing was done. The result was closed American factories, lost American manufacturing jobs, diminished American dreams.

Not this time though. Not this president. Obama showed he’s made of tougher stuff. By placing tariffs on imported Chinese tires, President Obama put himself in the line of fire for the jobs of U.S. workers, for the preservation of U.S. manufacturing and, ultimately, for the stabilization of the U.S. economy.

Don’t kid yourself. This is a battle. For the U.S. to maintain a viable economy, it must sustain a strong manufacturing base. It must make products of value that can be sold here and overseas – not just swap paper, some of it bogus on Wall Street.

The U.S. economy is under attack by countries engaging in unfair trade. In the past decade, we’ve lost 40,000 manufacturing facilities. In just the 21 months since the Great Recession began, more than 2 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs, making their unemployment rate 11.8 percent, significantly higher than the 9.7 percent rate for the average worker.

That’s what the Chinese tire case was all about. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW) filed it in April. We demanded penalties against China because it has smothered the U.S. market with tires. In 2004, its share of the U.S market was 4.7 percent. Four years later, it was 16.7 percent. In that time, the number of tires it sold rose from 14.6 million to 46 million. As a result, four U.S. tire manufacturing plants closed and 5,100 workers lost their jobs. Another three plants will close before year’s end, throwing 3,000 more U.S. workers on the street.

We filed for relief under “Section 421” for two reasons. One is that it provides quicker relief than other trade remedies. The other is that China consented to its provisions. When China wanted to get into the World Trade Organization in 2000, it secured U.S. support by agreeing to abide by Section 421 until 2013. Section 421 was designed to protect the U.S. economy by providing ways to combat unfair and damaging surges of particular Chinese imports.

In the past, corporations had asked for Section 421 tariffs. And we had joined them. This time, not one tire company joined us, though, to be clear, Goodyear was openly neutral. By contrast, Ohio-based Cooper, fought us. As did a collection of rag-tag import firms, one of which had nearly gone bankrupt after importing defective Chinese tires that had to be recalled after a series of crashes.

 Cooper, in testimony to the International Trade Commission, reported that all of the tires it makes at its Chinese plant, under its licensing agreement with the Chinese, must be exported until May, 2012. So it has a clear financial interest in preventing tariffs on imported tires to the U.S. The tire import companies have the same interest. For them, it’s about the money they make today, no matter how or where it’s made. They’ve got no allegiance to the U.S. and don’t care what happens to America’s future manufacturing capability or financial stability.

President Obama, by contrast, is a patriot who sees the big picture and takes the long view. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio was right when he said after the tire tariffs were announced:

“Today the President courageously stood up and enforced fair trade rules that will save jobs and help our communities. Since China joined the World Trade Organization, American workers have not been assured that the government would defend them against unfair trade. With this “Section 421” decision, President Obama has taken the side of American workers and manufacturers.

“Rigorous trade enforcement is a major piece of our manufacturing and global competitiveness strategy. If American workers and manufacturers are going to compete in the global market, they need to have a government that uses trade enforcement tools, including the Section 421 safeguard.”

American workers and American manufacturers can compete – when trade is fair. It’s unfair when countries don’t enforce their own labor regulations, including their own minimum wage laws. It’s unfair when U.S. companies abide by strict environmental regulations and those in other countries openly pollute air and water. It’s unfair when other countries allow their firms to steal trade secrets, when other countries demand that firms export all of their products for a certain number of years and when other countries manipulate the value of their currencies.

If trade laws aren’t enforced, America will lose virtually all manufacturing and become nothing but a dumping ground – a place where the rest of the world sells the stuff it makes. Fewer and fewer citizens in that America would be able to buy stuff after the factories close and all the jobs that they support disappear.

In announcing the tire trade sanctions — tariffs of 35 percent for a year beginning Sept. 26, 30 percent for a year after that, and 25 percent in the final year — U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said, “Enforcing trade laws is key to maintaining an open and free trading system.”

Unfair trade isn’t free.

President Obama is bold enough to draw that line of distinction for America.

Fred Redmond

By Fred Redmond
USW Vice President Human Affairs

Four hours into the New Year, a political activist who was also a well-known trade unionist was celebrating at a party in the town of Montoso when a political opponent stabbed him numerous times in the chest.

As Adolfo Tique lay dead, his six children fatherless, police interrogated the assassin.

Then they let him go.

By American standards, it’s a shocking story. But in Colombia, where it occurred, it’s not. It’s the kind of story I heard repeatedly, heartrendingly when I visited Colombia last month with a delegation of British Parliamentarians and unionists led by the United Steelworkers and Unite the Union, which together last year formed Workers Uniting, the first transatlantic union.

The visit left us with no reason to believe Colombia suddenly had become worthy of a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., Canada or the European Union.

The fact that Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world for trade unionists seemed to have made the same impression last year on Democratic candidate Barack Obama. In April of 2008, at an AFL-CIO convention, he promised to oppose the proposed Colombia Free Trade Agreement. He said, “The violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.”

This April, however, President Obama stung U.S. unions, which worked hard for his election and the FTA’s defeat. After Obama and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez sat together at lunch and spoke several times at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced that Obama had asked U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to work on the FTA.

Say it ain’t so, Mr. President! Say you haven’t turned your back on unionists just because you shared a sandwich with another head of state. Tell us you won’t ignore Tique’s six orphans or 2,700 slain unionists over the past 25 years because of Uribe’s charming banter over soup.

Terrible, disquieting signs suggest it is so, however. Uribe bragged that he’d gotten Obama’s autograph with this note: “To President Uribe, with admiration!” And later Kirk would say Obama is a “great admirer” of Uribe and the strides he has made in reducing violence against union officials.

Also, Uribe bragged that he’d explained to Obama how his administration had protected unionists. He said that before he took office in 2002, there were only two convictions for the murders of workers, but since then there have been 184.

The most reliable source of such statistics, however, the Colombian National Labor School, provides radically different numbers.  Luciano Sanin Vasquez, the school’s director, testified before the House Education and Labor Committee Feb. 12, that the number of successful prosecutions was 91.  So either Colombia doubled convictions within the two months’ time between Mr. Sanin’s testimony and the Fifth Summit of the Americas, or Uribe exaggerated his success in beginning to deal with the 40-year blood bath his country has endured as right wing militias fought left wing guerillas with trade unionists and human rights activists and rural populations caught in the cross fire.

And even Uribe’s inflated conviction number is hardly impressive. It still represents a 99 percent impunity rate. Kill a Colombian unionist, and 99 out of 100 times you’ll get away with it – the police may question you, but then they’ll just let you go, like they did in the Tique murder.

At lunch with President Obama, Uribe wrangled himself an invitation to the White House. No big deal, really. Uribe had been to Washington before, and Bush had never been able to persuade Congress to pass the FTA.

But Uribe also persuaded Obama to drop by Bogotá the next time he’s visiting Latin America. This, however, is significant. This is a trip Obama should make.

Having just returned from Colombia, I believe this excursion could make all the difference in the Colombian FTA for President Obama. But only if President Obama makes his own schedule and does not adhere to some sham show tour set up by Uribe’s people.

Obama needs to meet with some of the Colombian people who spoke with my delegation, including peasant farmers, human rights defenders and trade unionists. While I was in Colombia early in April, Hernan Polo Barrera, the head of the teachers trade union, SITRAENAL, was shot dead in front of his house. Because he’d received numerous threats, he’d asked for protection, but the government refused to provide it. He was the 13^th trade unionist killed so far this year.

When Obama goes to Colombia, I want him to speak with Mr. Polo’s 16-year-old daughter, Liseth, who was standing next to her father when he was gunned down and who was wounded in the attack. She was rushed to the hospital as the killers escaped on motorcycles. They have not been caught.

I also want President Obama to spend some time with the six year old son of Arled Samboni Guaca, an active member of the Colombian agricultural workers’ trade union, FENSUAGRO, who had received numerous death threats from Colombian paramilitary groups. Father and son were walking to a shop on Jan 16 when two gunmen approached them and shot Mr. Samboni seven times. The gunmen escaped. The little boy watched his father die.

Then there’s José Jair Valencia Agudelo, an activist in the Colombian teacher’s union EDUCAL. President Obama should speak with this assassination-attempt survivor. He was shot six times Feb. 26 in the town of Filadelfia a week after authorities refused to give him the transfer and protection that he’d sought because he’d received death threats.

President Obama must speak with one more grieving unionist. He is Jorge Caicedo, leader of the health workers trade union ANTHOC in the Colombian region of Narino. Paramilitaries tried to get to him through is wife, Cecilia Montano. They shot her three times in the head in the town of Tumaco on Jan. 5^th.

Before the new president is drawn in by Uribe’s contention that Colombia should be awarded an FTA because fewer trade unionists and human rights activists and rural peasants are murdered each year now, Obama must hear from the victims. And he should remember what Human Rights Watch wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last fall:

“Free trade should be premised on fundamental respect for human rights, especially the rights of the workers producing the goods to be traded. In Colombia, workers cannot exercise their right without fear of being threatened or killed. Without concrete and sustained results in addressing this basic problem, ongoing anti-union violence and impunity would, as President-elect Barack Obama has noted, make a “mockery” of labor protections in the agreement. We believe that Colombia should be in compliance with such protections before the accord takes effect, as has generally been demanded with FTA commercial provisions.”