U.S. trade policy with China hits close to home for some

For many people in the United States, the massive trade imbalance with China remains at best an academic issue, and one they are not inclined to give much thought. For others, trade with China means little more than the low prices they enjoy paying for the goods they cart home from the big box stores.
But this afternoon, four area members of Congress who are concerned about the imbalance of trade between the United States and China will be holding a press conference at Wheatland Tube in Warren. There may be a better place to hold such a media event, but we can't think of one.
For Wheatland Tube Co. and its workers and their families, there is nothing academic about China's trade policy. Wheatland has seen firsthand what happens when the United States looks the other way while China gobbles up a new market.
Wheatland makes pipe. It has been doing so successfully for most of the past 130 years.
China's invasion of the United States market has already cost hundreds of Wheatland's employees their jobs in Warren, Sharon and Wheatland and threatens the very existence of the company.
By the numbers
Consider these numbers: In 2002, China exported 9,000 tons of standard pipe to the United States. That jumped to 266,000 tons in 2004, and to more than 400,000 tons last year.
That's 800 million pounds of pipe -- nearly three pounds for every man, woman and child in the United States -- being imported at prices that are sometimes lower than the cost of materials for a manufacturer in the United States.
How does China do it? That's a good question and one that more people in our nation's capital should be asking.
U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan, D-17th; Betty Sutton, D-13th; Charlie Wilson, D-6th, all of Ohio, and Jason Altmire, D-4th, Pennsylvania, will be in Warren this afternoon with labor and management representatives of Wheatland Tube.
Wheatland's story is not a story of statistics. It is a story of people who are watching their jobs and their ways of life being destroyed by China's predatory trade policy.
Currency is one issue
Ryan, of Niles, has joined with Republican Duncan Hunter of California to co-sponsor a bill aimed at the undervalued Chinese yuan, which gives China a two-edged advantage. It makes China's goods cheaper when they are sold in the United States and U.S. goods more expensive on the Chinese market.
But the trade imbalance between the United States and China goes beyond currency manipulation. The United States is a victim of lopsided trade policies and wrong-headed free-trade philosophies.
What was once the greatest producing nation in the history of the world is becoming a nation of consumers. In the short run, it's fun buying all the stuff that other countries are willing to produce at prices below the production cost for American companies. But in the long run, such trade policy is going to be a disaster.