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Public D
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5715045.html
April 19, 2008, 11:17PM
Land of steel has hard questions
In Pennsylvania, voters are urging the candidates to confront China on its trade practices
By BILL LAMBRECHT
McClatchy-Tribune
SHARON, PA. — In the hollowed-out towns where steel plants once thrived, business and labor are uniting to demand that presidential contenders stand up to a growing threat to American steel — China.
Explosive growth in Chinese steel imports fueled by China's subsidies and questionable trade practices are triggering anti-China sentiments and fears for the future in American communities sustained for decades by the manufacture of steel.
Now, China's threat to American steel towns from Pittsburgh to Granite City, Ill., is center stage in the debate over trade and globalization.
One such town, Sharon, Pa., sent a busload of steelworkers and community leaders 75 miles south to Pittsburgh last week to grill Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton about China in advance of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary.
Passing out red leaflets proclaiming that "China Cheats," steelworkers and executives demanded that the next president enforce trade laws and confront China over what they regard as unfair trade practices.
"What China is doing rips the heart out of your community," said Sharon Mayor Bob Lucas, a retired steelworker who recalled the razing last year of a pipe plant that employed 350 people. " ... They can ship pipe across the ocean cheaper than it costs us to buy the raw materials to make it."
Until recently, the presidential candidates have seemed unwilling to confront China issues.
As Obama and Clinton asserted last week, the U.S. government may be losing its leverage as it sells China more than $500 billion in treasury bonds to finance the U.S. debt — borrowing from the "Bank of China" as Obama put it.
But China politics have gained prominence in the run-up to the primary election Tuesday in Pennsylvania, where a business-labor alliance blames China imports for the loss of 16,000 Pennsylvania jobs last year alone.
The economy and jobs are by far the biggest issues on the minds of Pennsylvania voters, according to polls that give Clinton a narrow lead in her uphill drive to keep her presidential quest afloat. The loss of manufacturing jobs also is expected to loom large in upcoming contests May 6 in North Carolina and Indiana, another leading steel-making state.
Attitudes toward China have shifted as the nation's economy has worsened. An Associated Press survey found that China had replaced North Korea on the list of America's top three enemies — behind Iran and Iraq.
Meanwhile, the approach of the Beijing Olympics this summer and China's crackdown on Tibetan dissent has raised China's profile, turning up the heat on candidates.
"What we are seeing is a growing understanding that China presents a significant challenge and that we need a president who will do something about it," said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, the business-labor group that sponsored the Pittsburgh gathering last week. |
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Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:19 pm |
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Ted Jankowski
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Well, we've already allowed our trade policies to undermind our economy.
So what do we do now?
Seems to me the most logical thing would be to not buy china products.
But, how do you do that? Most stuff is already built there.
Stop Shopping at WalMart?
Stop buying foreign goods?
This is where I believe many of the Union Haters miss the point. There are legitimate reasons to bash the Unions and this is one of them.
When Kessel bought out Hamady's and UAW members crossed the lines. They underminded not only our economy, but there's also.
When they walk into a tire store and want to buy the cheapest china tire they can find. They undermind their own economy and that of everyone else.
Stop buying thier products! It's reall that simple. |
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Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:48 pm |
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Demeralda
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It's too late. Everyone buys their crap, courtesy mostly of Wal-Mart.
The only thing that will fix it is beginning to happen: workers in China are starting to rebel against poor wages and working conditions. Unions are forming. Wages are climbing.
Eventually, just like us, they'll price themselves out of the labor market. Then corporations will head to the last frontier -- Africa. |
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Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:02 pm |
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