WASHINGTON
A coalition of executives, labor leaders and trade policy experts is
calling on the Obama administration and the Presidential candidates to
step up support for the revitalization of manufacturing in America to
protect U.S. economic and national security interests and restore jobs.
Saying that the decline in American manufacturing has resulted from
government policy failures that must be remedied, the Committee to
Support U.S. Trade Laws issued its call to action at a summit of more
than 300 top executives, legislators, Administration officials, union
leaders and trade and economic policy experts. Speakers at the Second
Annual Conference on the Renaissance of American Manufacturing at the
National Press Club included Gene B. Sperling, Director of the National
Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy,
Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Rob Portman (R-OH) and Jeff Sessions
(R-AL), Paul Piquado, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import
Administration, and Neal Orringer, Director of Manufacturing in the
Pentagon’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy.
“America has lost a third of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000,
and we have no consistent policy to keep entire industries from
continuing to leave our shores,” said Gilbert B. Kaplan, president of
the committee, known as CSUSTL, and an international trade lawyer at
King & Spalding in Washington. “Last year, the United States had the
largest trade deficit in the history of the world – $295 billion – with
our largest manufacturing competitor, China. The issues that voters
today are most worried about – job creation, national security and
ensuring America’s long-term prosperity – are all inextricably tied to
keeping manufacturing in America alive.”
The only way to improve the jobs picture in a meaningful and sustained
way, members of the coalition say, will be to change U.S. trade policies
to address the continued decline in manufacturing.
Some progress is already being made, Kaplan acknowledged. President
Obama recently established a special trade enforcement task force, a
measure that CSUSTL called for in a Statement of Principles released at
its first summit in 2010. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said
that if he is elected, he will declare China a currency manipulator on
his first day in office, while Rick Santorum has proposed broad-scale
tax benefits for U.S. manufacturing. And in early-March, the President
and both parties in the House and Senate joined forces to pass
legislation supporting the continued application of anti-subsidy laws to
China to fight back against the massive subsidies the Chinese government
gives manufacturers targeting the U.S. market.
“As a nation, we also need to look very hard at the potential benefits
of a cross-agency government manufacturing policy, at investment, at tax
policy and at reshoring,” said Clyde V. Prestowitz Jr., president of the
Economic Strategy Institute, one of the sponsors of the summit.
The group is also concerned about the potential impact of a shrinking
manufacturing base on America’s national security. In addition to
helping fuel China’s ongoing military expansion, the mounting trade
shortfall and diminished manufacturing capacity means that critical
military, telecommunications and aerospace components and technology
once produced in the U.S. must now be purchased from foreign suppliers.
The Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws is an organization of
companies, trade associations, labor unions, workers, and individuals
committed to preserving and enhancing U.S. trade laws. CSUSTL’s members
span all sectors, including manufacturing, technology, agriculture,
mining and energy, and services. CSUSTL is dedicated to ensuring that
the unfair trade laws are not weakened through legislation or policy
decisions in Washington, D.C., in international negotiations, or through
dispute settlements at the World Trade Organization and elsewhere.
In addition to the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws and the Economic
Strategy Institute, sponsors of the Second Annual Conference on the
Renaissance of American Manufacturing include: the U.S. Economy/Smart
Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, Alliance for
American Manufacturing, United States Business and Industry Council, The
Kearny Alliance, King & Spalding, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, Wiley Rein
LLP, Law Offices of Stewart and Stewart and Coalition for a Prosperous
America.
Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws
Gilbert B. Kaplan, 202-661-7981
President
or
For
Media
Kate Alexander, 201-638-3946
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