Trade Protest Is Planned on Eve of a Chinese Leader’s Visit
New York Times — On Tuesday, a coalition of big American labor unions, Democratic politicians and trade advocacy groups plans to start campaigning for the Obama administration to file a series of trade cases against China in the auto industry. They accuse Beijing of unfairly subsidizing Chinese auto parts makers and illegally restricting the exports of crucial raw materials that foreign parts makers need to stay competitive.
The group says a 900 percent increase in auto parts imports from China over the last decade, to nearly $12 billion a year, is to blame for job losses in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — three swing states that the administration cannot easily ignore in a presidential election year.
“The Chinese have cheated,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who is a Congressional leader of the trade effort along with Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan.
