U.S. Vows Tough Enforcement of Trade Laws on China

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Commerce Secretary Don Evans vowed "tough" enforcement of U.S. trade laws on Thursday, one day before his department is due to make a preliminary decision whether to impose potentially massive import duties on wooden bedroom furniture from China.

"We are going to continue to look American workers in the eye, all across this country, and tell them we are going to be tough when it comes to enforcing our trade laws and maintaining a level playing field with the rest of the world.

They'd better start today if they want my vote. I'll be voting on Jobs for Americans.

Stop illegal cheap labor. Stop importing cheap labor. Stop the outsourcing by slapping a tariff on any good or service entering the country so businesses and workers here have a level playing field. And go after companies who hire illegals...no more pretending you're doing something about it. Hit them and hit them hard so the invasion stops dead in it's tracks. The only way to end it is to cut off the jobs.

The government can also rescind that stupid 'insurance policy' that mitigates the loss to businesses that go overseas. Also, the 'outsourcing' craze has a large component of profit margin, i.e., the costs go down while the price of the goods remains the same, or the decrease really does not reflect the actual decrease in manufacturing costs.
Now, on the flip side, the standard of living, though barely, does increase for those employed overseas.
However, if a corporation is to enjoy the legal protections in the United States and access to the markets, it better play ball. I suspect that there is a growing dissatisfaction among employees in companies that think outsourcing is all the rage.

Now let me get this right. Our US employers compete against their own neighbors by hiring cheap, overseas labor, but we can't buy overseas products from new US importers?

..."free market," huh? Hypocrites!

I say, "Turn it loose!" Let's walk the walk, and that includes dropping tariffs and taxes on free market soft lumber, beef and other imports!

Or protect our domestic interests, including those for US employees, all the way. ...one or the other. We'll work for a decent wage here or work for overseas companies after the dollar drops enough.

The way the world is going, slavery just won't fly for long.

I say, "Turn it loose!" Let's walk the walk, and that includes dropping tariffs and taxes on free market soft lumber, beef and other imports!

YES! If foreign workers can do the same thing cheaper, then we should buy those goods and advance on to the next revolutionary industry. The US economy has evolved in this fashion for a couple hundred years now. Competetion and innovation have made us all wealthy.

Tougher trade enforcements are definitely needed to help the trade imbalance that is around $120 billion last year with China. However, we need to keep in mind that short of cutting off trade with China (which I don't see happening unless there is an armed conflict them), trade with China will simply continue to grow. That is because the continued opening of China, with it's 1.3 billion people, will affect global trade.

But despite all that we import from China, we do import more from Canada.

In the first 4 months of this year, the US imported from Canada $82 billion in goods and from China $54 billion. Yet, Canada only has 30 million people. Obviously, higher value products are imported from Canada versus the labor intensive products from China.

Of course Canada buys more from the US which results in a much higher trade deficit with China. Trade imbalance (first 4 months of this year): Canada $21 billion vs. China $42 billion.

Source: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/exh14.txt

Most of the products that China competes in are still lower value labor intensive products. That will change in the coming years as higher value products will be imported from China (such as autos). But it is not an unreasonable assumption that China (given its huge population) will someday surpass Canada to be America's largest trading partner. America will continue to trade with China, but it will always be a contentious relationship (and for many years to come) simply by the nature of the impact of 1.3 billion people entering the market place.

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