Duly noted.

*****

Senior U.S. Official On China Trade Resigns

February 22, 2010

Reuters

WASHINGTON - A senior American trade official in charge of handling disputes with China has left the U.S. Trade Representative's office to take a job in the private sector, his new employer said on Monday.

Tim Stratford stepped down as assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs to take a job in the Beijing office of international law firm Covington & Burling, which employs a number of former U.S. trade officials.

PA-Sen:  Pat Toomey's Club for Growth has promoted disastrous trade policies for the U.S.   The Club takes the unilateral disarmament approach... that the U.S. should unilaterally drop all trade barriers regardless of whether others do the same.

Caterpillar's Jim Owens has been a major supporter of these same policies. 

Today, Jim Owens is the featured speaker at Pat Toomey's K Street fundraiser.  See the email invitation and flier for the event below the fold.

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Gregory Tassey, of the National Institute of Science & Technology, produced a very good recent paper on why we need a national strategy for manufacturing and R&D.  It can be found here. 

Richard McCormack of Manufacturing & Technology News featured this story in his recent edition.

Economists view trade through their elegant mathematical formulas which are built on the foundations of (often erroneous) assumptions of how real world dynamics work.  Editorial writers view trade through a Pollyanna-ish win-win view of trade partners skipping barefoot through the flowers... singing... hand in hand.

The real world is cut throat among trade rivals trying to get the upper hand by any means possible.  They try to get a net export surplus through government help, through misrepresenting product, through avoiding rules, through substandard quality passed on as high quality, etc.

In the relatively rare event that an enforcement ruling comes down, in the trade context, applying anti-dumping duties, they avoid it.

Ant-dumping duties were applied to Chinese cut-to-length steel plates.  Presumably the enforcement decision defined that product category in a specific way.  So... the Chinese may be adding boron to the plates, trying to take them out of the enforcement decision category, but selling to the same market. 

In other words, the boron addition is a relatively insignificant product change solely for the purpose of avoiding the enforcement decision.

Read below the fold for the article from the SBB Daily Briefing (subscription only).

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The main ag commodity organizations have always been pushing trade agreements hard.  Readers of this blog are aware of my contempt for those who talk about the export side of the net trade equation only.  They are dishonest.

In the hogs/pork and cattle/beef trade, there is another way to hide the ball.  We are a net exporter of pork and a net importer of beef, which are what the big meatpackers sell.  But we are net importer of hogs and cattle - the precursors of pork and beef - which are what farmers and ranchers sell. 

In the marketplace, the imports of hogs and cattle depress farm/ranch prices, lowering the cost of meat packer procurement.  But wholesale meat prices - a different product from hogs and cattle - are somewhat buoyed by the exports.  Good for multinational meatpackers, bad for ag producers.

Now there is a push to enter into some sort of additional trade agreements with China and Russia.  China is the "holy grail" for the pork industry, according to the National Pork Producers Council. 

That's what we've heard from other sectors, and we see how that worked out.  But more specifically, ag economist Daryll Ray from the University of Tennessee debunks that "export opportunity" fantasy:

[A] clear-eyed look at their history and stated intentions indicates that their goal is to become virtually self-sufficient in meat.

With regard to Russia, Agrinews’ Thorstensen reports that “NPPC not only wants to reach an agreement with Russia, it wants to increase the US quota share as a condition of [Russia’s] World Trade Organization accession.”

Where is the biggest, richest market in the world?  Right here.  We live in it.  And we give it away, thus losing market share in our own market.  With trade agreements that promise us fantasies of "export opportunity" that never seems to materialize. 

Not smart.

UPDATE:  I initially wrote that the U.S. is a net exporter of beef.  This is not true.  We are a net importer of beef.  

March 2-4, The Coalition for a Prosperous America

CPA will hold its Second Annual Legislative Fly-In on March 2-4, 2010.  This is a powerful opportunity for us to work together to advance trade reform in the halls of Congress.  We need to bring the concerns of the grass roots to our legislators.

This is efficient advocacy, well worth your time.  We make all the meeting arrangements with legislators or their staff, we put together materials, we plan a message, and we pack meetings together in a concentrated period of time.  You make a bigger impact with your time using only three of the 365 days in the year.

Click here to sign up for the CPA Fly In.

CPA has a special offer--limited time only: the first 50 registrants get a free copy of Ian Fletcher's new book: Free Trade Doesn't Work.  This is a highly acclaimed book about trade policy and the needed changes therein. 

Agenda:

March 2, 2010:  2p to 6p - Group meeting for training, talking points and team assignments

March 3-4, 2010:  Hill visits

Place:  Capitol Skyline Hotel, 10 I ("Eye") Street SW, Washington, DC 20024

Once you sign up with CPA, reserve your room at the Capitol Skyline Hotel by calling 202.488.7500.  You should book for the evenings of March 2 and March 3. 

Which manufacturing operations should return to the United States?

by William J. Holstein

For years, the NCR Corporation simply followed the pack. Like many other large U.S. manufacturing companies, in the past couple of decades the maker of automated teller machines (ATMs) relied heavily on offshoring and outsourcing to trim factory costs. By making much of its equipment in cheaper offshore locations in the Asia/Pacific region, and by hiring Singapore’s Flextronics International Ltd. to make other equipment, NCR could slash hundreds of millions of dollars in plant expenses and be reasonably certain that its ATMs met quality standards.

Manufacturing News
February 12, 2010 Vol. 17, No.  3

The Quadrennial Defense Review from the Secretary of  Defense admits that the U.S. government "as a whole" and the "Pentagon in  particular" have ignored the erosion of the defense industrial base. "The  result has been that America's defense industry has consolidated and  contracted around 20th-century platforms rather than developing the broad  and flexible portfolio of systems that today's security environment  demands." It is now time for Congress, the Pentagon and the entire  federal government to abandon the "outdated attitude toward the U.S.  defense industrial base," that was "for decades, largely hands off," says  the QDR.

We hear about the unemployment rate and lack of jobs.  But we hear sporadic statistics which are hard to internalize.  We feel our own employment or unemployment.  But we can't feel the pulse of the trends in numbers.

This link gives you a visual progression on unemployment in the U.S. from 2007 through 2009.   Starting in 2007, there are pockets of higher unemployment, but this video progression takes off in 2008 and 2009.  It feels, when watching, like a disease that has gained the upper hand on the body's immune system and is running rampant.

This is a big job... getting folks back to work.  Three percent growth only stops job losses, according to most.  It does not lower the unemployment rate. 

We need to restructure our economy by eliminating the trade deficit/offshoring drain.  Fixing trade policy, with an integrated economic plan, is the only way to do this.

IN-Sen:  Democratic Congressman Brad Ellsworth (IN-8) comes from a relatively conservative district in southern Indiana.  He has announced his intention to run to replace Senator Evan Bayh.   

Ellsworth's record on trade is slim, because he has only been in Congress since 2006.  He voted for the Peru FTA (bad) and was a currency manipulation bill co-sponsor in the 109th Congress (good).  He won by 30 points in 2008 (though I don't know that he had a top tier challenger) and McCain won his district by four points in the 2008 presidential election.

Likely the strongest Republican candidate is former Senator Dan Coats.

Peter Harriman
Argus Leader - South Dakota
February 19, 2010

A federal court ruling from eastern Washington earlier this month could shore up the legal foundation under country of origin meat labeling, or COOL, which faces a challenge from Mexico and Canada at the World Trade Organization.
 
That's the opinion of the cattle industry group R-Calf and Sen. Tim Johnson, a longtime COOL proponent.
 
However, a meat industry spokesman insisted the ruling from the Washington Easterday Ranches case has no effect on the WTO complaint against COOL.
 
"It's a completely separate legal process," National Meat Association spokesman Jeremy Russell said.

The following comes to us from the AFL-CIO Working Families e-Activist Network which can be accessed here.

The Whirlpool Corp. is closing a refrigerator manufacturing plant in Evansville, Ind., putting more than 1,100 people out of work. Even worse, Whirlpool will continue to produce these refrigerators, but not inEvansville and not anywhere else in America. They are planning to manufacture them in Mexico, where weaker labor and environmental laws make them “cheaper” for Whirlpool to produce.

This is outrageous and unacceptable, especially in light of Whirlpool’s profitability and the $19 million dollars in economic recovery money Whirlpool recently received from the federal government as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those are OUR economic recovery funds, not Mexico’s.

To protest Whirlpool’s decisions and demand good jobs in America, I’m heading to Evansville next Friday to rally and march with local workers and labor leaders—and I’d like you to join me. No, I’m not asking you to join me in person, but I would like you to sign a petition in solidarity with the Evansville workers for me to deliver to Whirlpool’s management.

Click here to sign our petition to Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America: Save Our Jobs.

Too many people have lost their jobs. Too many jobs have been sent overseas. Enough is enough. Whirlpool’s management can’t take our money, shut down our factories and lay off our workers. It’s not acceptable—and together we’re going to deliver a loud and clear message to Whirlpool: Keep It Made in America and Save Our Jobs.

Sign our petition today.

Tell your friends to sign the petition in solidarity.

Together we will fight against corporate greed and for good jobs. Together we will rebuild the American economy, because everyone deserves a good job NOW!

In solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
AFL-CIO President

P.S. Please sign the petition today. Our power is in our numbers. Together we can make a difference.
 
 
If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Working Families e-Activist Network.