U.S., China Talk Trade Ahead of Presidential Visit

U.S. and Chinese officials met last week for the annual Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade meeting ahead of President Barack Obama’s scheduled China visit next month, achieving little progress and exposing the fissures between the two nations.

Still stung by the White House’s decision to impose 35 percent duties on Chinese tire imports at the behest of the United Steel Workers union, Beijing officials announced that they would launch an investigation into whether American auto companies have unfairly benefited from government aid.

The probe could eventually lead to higher tariffs on U.S. car exports. Both General Motors and Chrysler have received billions of dollars in government assistance in the past year. However, the measure would be largely symbolic, and have very little impact on the Big Three. American automakers export roughly 9,000 vehicles to China each year, but sell millions in the Asian market. All three Detroit companies have joint ventures in China that allow them to manufacture there.

The delegation, led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and U.S. Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack, did come away with some concessions from Chinese officials.

Agreements were reached on high-tech trade, energy cooperation and poultry trade. Chinese officials also vowed to crack down on intellectual property theft.

"We must look to the future and cooperate to create balanced and sustainable trade, lifting more of our people out of poverty not just for our own citizens in China and the United States but indeed all around the world," Locke said. "It is critical that we make definite, concrete, demonstrable progress today to demonstrate to our citizens and people of the whole world that U.S. and China can work together."

However, for all the claims of great progress made during the meeting, officials failed to address many of the issues that have caused such an unbalanced trade relationship between China and the U.S.

No agreements were reached on the issues of Chinese currency manipulation, dumping, government subsidized production or any other unfair trade practice that China has used to gain an advantage on American producers. Through the first eight months of the year, China’s trade surplus with the U.S. totaled $143.7 billion, despite the fact that trade between the two countries is down 15 percent from the previous year.

The ever-growing trade deficit with China has had devastating results on the American economy. From 2001 to 2007, trade with China resulted in the loss of 2.3 million jobs, 1.6 million of those in the manufacturing sector. In 2006 alone, the trade gap with China resulted in the loss of 366,000 American jobs.

In that same time, the U.S. has lost 561,000 jobs in computer and electronic products, 153,000 in apparel and accessories, 139,000 in administrative support services and 128,000 in professional, scientific and technical services, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Displaced workers lost an average of $8,146 annually - a total of $19.4 billion - as they moved into lower paying jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Click Here For Solutions To America's Economic Problems

Click here to contact your Representative in Congress.

Spread this message with Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, or Stumbleupon, and subscribe to the RSS Feed to track articles

Please Donate to EconomyinCrisis.org today

Please do your part, send a donation of $5, $10, $15 or any amount by PayPal or major credit card.

Download our Podcast from iTunes

Follow us on Twitter

Donate Today