Ryan Blasts Job Losses from China Trade

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- A new report released Thursday provides “a lot of ammunition for those of us on Capitol Hill” to argue against unfair trade policies that U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-13 Ohio, and others say have cost the United States more than 3.2 million  jobs, including 7,800 in Ryan’s district.

The report, issued by the Economic Policy Institute, found those job losses occurred between 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, and December 2013. That includes 2.4 million jobs in manufacturing.

Ohio ranks eighth in jobs lost because of  the trade imbalance with China, the report found.

“The key to a robust and growing manufacturing base in the United States is to be exporting more, to have a balanced economy between production and consumption and to have reciprocal trade with our major partners including countries like China and Japan,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, on a conference call with reporters. U.S. imports  increased 2.5 times the rate of exports, he noted.

The job losses are “inexcusable,” Ryan remarked.

“This report shows the major impact China and other less developed countries have with low-wage workers that drive down wages for workers in the U.S. and especially in manufacturing,” a direct loss of $37 billion in reduced wages in 2011 alone, the congressman continued.

“It becomes very difficult for us to do economic development at the local level when our macroeconomic policies like our trade policies with China are really putting us at a severe disadvantage,” Ryan said.

The report also highlights how currency manipulation is “rapidly growing” the U.S. trade deficit, noted Ryan, a longtime critic of China’s currency policy. Although China’s productivity has “soared” during the past two years, its currency has not adjusted accordingly.

Robert Scott, who wrote the study, called on Congress to pass legislation that would allow the Commerce Department to punish currency manipulators, and he called on President Obama to use his existing authority to tax or offset currency manipulation by foreign governments.

Currency manipulation reform legislation has been approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate, but not during the same legislative term, Ryan said. “This has the political support needed to push it but we’ve got to coordinate and get this done in the same year and make the administration make a decision on this,” he said.

He also noted that several companies in his district compete directly with Chinese steel tube manufacturers, and China’s final product will come to the United States at a price equivalent to the cost of the U.S. product’s raw materials. “That’s the kind of disadvantage that our companies are at when they’re competing directly with China,” he said.

Also Thursday, Ryan and U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, joined several colleagues in a letter urging the Commerce Department to act on enforcing antidumping and countervailing duty remedies on aluminum extrusions from China.

Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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