[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 25, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3754-S3755]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

            NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     American and Chinese Economies

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the current financial crisis paints our 
economic relationship with China in broad relief. Our economies are not 
healthy, China's economy, the economy of the United States. And worse, 
these two countries' economies, ours and China's, are codependent.
  The U.S. official unemployment rate is 8.1 percent. In my State of 
Ohio, it is 9.4 percent, the highest rate inflicted on our State in 25 
years. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of factories in China have closed 
over the past 6 months.
  China is one enormous export platform, and the United States is its 
biggest customer. We, for all intents and purposes, have stopped 
buying. Morgan Stanley economists report that exports account for 47 
percent of the economies of China and other East Asian nations. 
Literally 47 percent of their economy, almost half of their economy, is 
devoted to export in China and other Eastern Asian countries, while in 
our country, the United States, consumption accounts for 70 percent of 
our GDP. This economic codependency has bred a dangerously skewed 
financial relationship. As revenues flow out of the United States and 
into China, China has become our biggest lender. Imagine what that is 
going to look like if we continue these policies in the years ahead. 
What it means for sovereign wealth funds, the collection of United 
States dollars held by Chinese banks, Chinese Government treasury, 
Chinese businesses, the number of United States dollars, because of 
their trade surplus, coming from our trade deficit situation--I do not 
need to detail the

[[Page S3755]]

risk that relationship breeds. But its roots lie in our economic 
codependency, and our economic codependency is rooted in our Nation's 
passive trade policy.
  Senator Sanders and Senator Whitehouse, joining me on the floor, with 
the Presiding Officer, all understand what these trade agreements have 
done, this passive trade policy that we have practiced for more than a 
decade, what that has done to our country.
  Ohio is one of the great manufacturing States in our Nation. We make 
paper, steel, aluminum, glass, cars, tires, solar panels--one of the 
leading States in the country manufacturing solar panels--polymers, 
wind turbines, and more. Look around you today and you will see, 
wherever you go, something that was made in Ohio.
  So let's look at a typical Ohio manufacturer and compare that with a 
Chinese manufacturer. The Ohio manufacturer has a minimum wage to pay 
his workers, as he should. The Ohio manufacturer has clean air rules, 
safe drinking water rules, workplace rules, product safety standards by 
which to abide, helping to keep our workers healthy and productive, 
helping to keep customers safe, helping to create a better, more humane 
society.
  Worker safety, environment, public health, treating workers properly, 
these are all things our country and the values it represents has 
brought to us. The Chinese manufacturer has no minimum wage to 
maintain, is allowed to pollute local water sources, is allowed to let 
workers use dangerous and faulty machinery and, frankly, whether it is 
in a vitamin or food of some kind, is allowed to use, too often, toxic 
substances, such as on children's toys with lead-based paint, things 
such as that. Chinese manufacturing doesn't do any of the things the 
Ohio manufacturer does.
  The Ohio manufacturer pays taxes, health benefits, pays into Social 
Security and Medicare, typically allows family leave, and gives WARN 
notices when there is a plant closing. The Chinese manufacturer does 
little of that, but the Chinese manufacturer also allows child labor, 
which is expressly forbidden in this country. The Ohio manufacturer 
generally receives no government subsidies. The Chinese manufacturer 
often receives some subsidies for the development of new technologies 
and, often, subsidies for export assistance. The Chinese manufacturer 
benefits from China's manipulation of its currency which gives it up to 
a 40-percent cost advantage.
  The Ohio manufacturer is going green, investing in new technologies 
and efficiency to create more sustainable production practices. Ohio 
manufacturers are part of the movement to become more energy efficient. 
They will do their job to reduce carbon emissions but not at the 
expense of jobs if China and other countries don't take comparable 
action. When an Ohio manufacturer petitions for relief, when he says, 
``I can compete with anyone, but this is not a level playing field;'' 
when the Ohio manufacturer says he wants to emit less carbon but needs 
to see that his competitors from China bear the same cost on similar 
time lines, what does the Chinese Government say? They call it 
protectionism.
  Last week Energy Secretary Chu noted in a hearing that unless other 
countries bear a cost for carbon emissions, the United States will be 
at a disadvantage. The Chinese official responded:

       I will oppose using climate change as an excuse to practice 
     protectionism on trade.

  Chinese officials are quick to call us protectionist, a country that 
has an $800 billion trade deficit, despite all the protections the 
Chinese afford its manufacturers. Meanwhile, the United States has the 
world's most open economy, as we should.
  Of course, Chinese officials are often joined by highly paid American 
CEOs, by Ivy League economists, by editorial boards at darn near every 
newspaper in the country in calling any effort to rebuild American 
manufacturing protectionist. In newspapers around the country, when we 
fight for American jobs and say we need a level playing field, 
newspapers will say we are protectionist. That is why there is such a 
sense of urgency about changing this manufacturing policy. China's 
industrial policy is based on unfair trade practices. It involves 
direct export subsidies and indirect subsidies such as currency 
manipulation and copyright piracy, hidden subsidies such as lax 
standards and low labor costs, and unenforced environmental rules. In 
total, it results in millions of lost jobs--in Erie, Pittsburgh, 
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Youngstown, Sandusky, Zaynesville, and Lima, 
all over the States.
  It is also depressing wage and income levels worldwide, while China's 
exploitation of environmental and health and safety standards injures 
Chinese, sometimes kills Chinese workers and citizens, and adds to our 
climate change challenges. The health of our economy, the strength of 
our middle class depends on how Congress and how the Obama 
administration engages with China on these issues.
  I yield the floor.

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