China Must Be Accountable On Trade
Wall Street Journal – So much for free-market economics. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page once again cheers China’s communist regime, which underwrites its industries and undervalues its currency, over American manufacturers looking to compete globally (“A Welcome Trade Win for China,” Review & Outlook, March 21).
When countries like China manipulate their currency and give government subsidies to industry, that’s not competing–that’s cheating. Since enactment of what amounts to a one-way free-trade agreement with China 10 years ago, our bilateral trade deficit increased by 170%. And while the Journal continues to defend China’s far from free regime, and dismisses trade enforcement as “petty,” American manufacturers are suffering. If we’re going to double American exports and rebuild manufacturing and our middle class, it won’t be by giving China a free pass on following international trade law. It will be by standing up for American manufacturing by preventing a flood of cheap imports made with illegal subsidies and priced artificially low due to currency manipulation.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio)
Avon, Ohio
