October 18, 2017 U.S. Factory Jobs Threatened

Broken promises and delayed trade actions threaten U.S. factory jobs. Semi-annual treasury report doesn’t label China a currency.

As presidential candidate, Donald Trump promised to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office. But President Trump hasn’t done so amid a trend of conflicting trade messages including delayed steel and aluminum imports investigations and the unbalanced trade deficit.

Those mixed messages took center stage Tuesday when the Treasury Department kept China on its “watch list,” according to its semi-annual Report on the Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States.

Said Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) President Scott Paul: 

“The president campaigned on China’s predatory trade practices and the massive trade deficit, but when given the chance to make real change, he just delays.

“I appreciate Treasury’s hat tip surrounding the massive trade deficit with China, but until that gap shrinks, it won’t mean much to America’s factories.

“Meanwhile, our workers are suffering. President Trump shelved the Section 232 steel and aluminum imports investigation and prompted a flood of imports.

“At least two steel mills in Pennsylvania are facing layoffs amid soaring steel imports. The Chinese government has done almost everything possible to bolster its own steel and manufacturing industries at the expense of our own, and it is becoming a make or break point for U.S. steel makers.

“American factory voters were promised a pinch-hitter. Trump will fill that position when he steps up to the plate and restores factory jobs through steel imports and trade deficit action.”

Paul shared expanded remarks on China’s trade practices before a House Ways and Means subcommittee on U.S. trade relations in the Asia-Pacific late last week. To read or watch Paul’s testimony, visit waysandmeans.house.gov.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) is a non-profit, non-partisan partnership formed in 2007 by some of America’s leading manufacturers and the United Steelworkers. Our mission is to strengthen American manufacturing and create new private-sector jobs through smart public policies. We believe that an innovative and growing manufacturing base is vital to America’s economic and national security, as well as to providing good jobs for future generations. AAM achieves its mission through research, public education, advocacy, strategic communications, and coalition building around the issues that matter most to America’s manufacturers and workers.

Reprinted with kind permission of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).

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