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The latest World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Round ministerial level talks collapsed on July 29 after more than a week of intense negotiations. While countries reportedly reached agreement on 17 of the 20 negotiating points, the refusal of India and China to lower trade barriers on agricultural products without an easily triggered safeguard derailed the Round. A safeguard is a mechanism that allows a country to increase tariffs or establish quotas in response to surging imports that have caused damage in its market.
Specifically, the dispute was over the threshold for when developing nations could trigger agricultural safeguard tariffs and how high those tariffs could be. India and China wanted the ability to use the safeguard at a mere 10 percent increase in imports, while the United States wanted developing countries to accept at least a 40 percent import trigger. Neither side was willing to move on this issue, and the talks collapsed.
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The American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition’s (AMTAC) mission is to preserve and create American manufacturing jobs through the establishment of trade policy and other measures necessary for the U.S. manufacturing sector to stabilize and grow.
AMTAC strongly opposes granting Vietnam permanent normal trade relations (PNTR). Our opposition is based on the view that granting Vietnam PNTR replicates the flawed trade policy model of allowing China to join the WTO before that country made sufficient progress transitioning from a non-market, state-run economy to a non-subsidized, free-market economy. As applied to Vietnam, this model grants unlimited access to the U.S. market to producers in Vietnam who use massive subsidies, intellectual property theft, pennies-an-hour wages, low or nonexistent labor standards, and less than minimal environmental standards to undercut U.S. domestic manufacturers. In return, U.S. domestic manufacturers gain less than full access to a market that is only a fraction of the value of the U.S. market.
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Testimony Archive
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The truth is that American families are in hock to foreign countries like China to the tune of $2.5 trillion. That’s $21,875 for every household, enough to pay the tuition for your child’s four-year college education.
How did we get to this point? It's blind faith in ‘Free Trade’ policies that ship our manufacturing jobs overseas and expose our markets to unfair competition -- policies that forget the primary goal of U.S. trade policy should be to ensure the prosperity of each and every American’s future.
So what is our future under ‘Free Trade’? The chart above illustrating America's exploding trade deficit with all of our Free Trade Agreement Partners. It tells you all you need to know. The red ink will continue to get worse until America stands up for itself.
Think about that the next time a politician tells you about how wonderful free trade is.
AMTAC tracks U.S. trade and employment data and other leading economic indicators. You can find everything from the U.S. trade deficit with China to employment gain or loss by industrial sector.
To find the data you want pick a topic below:
Jobs- Savings and Income - Wages - Output - Prices - Economic Growth - Trade Deficit Data
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38 Manufacturing, Labor, and Ag Groups Urge Reversal of U.S. Govt. Decision to Obscure Reporting of Foreign Direct Investment
July 31, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC – Yesterday, 38 organizations representing U.S. manufacturing, labor, and agricultural interests sent a letter to the chairmen of four congressional committees (2 House and 2 Senate) urging Congress to reverse the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) decision to cease its survey of tracking new foreign direct investment in the United States now contained in its “New Investment Series.”[1] Without this data, the U.S. government and the American public will no longer be able to distinguish between foreign direct investments (FDI) used to acquire existing U.S. assets worldwide from FDI actually used to establish new U.S. businesses.
“Americans need a clear picture of what is happening with their economy,” said American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition Executive Director Auggie Tantillo. He encouraged Congress to act swift on the FDI reporting issue and continued, “The fact that 90 percent of U.S. FDI is American companies and assets changing ownership to foreign hands signals that America effectively is servicing its debts by selling off many of its most profitable assets.”
“It is imperative that the U.S. Department of Commerce accurately account for all aspects of foreign direct investment in this country and not shortchange this important reporting process,” added Jerry Call, Executive Vice President of the American Foundry Society (AFS). “We need a clear picture of whether the foreign direct investment is for new start ups or acquiring established U.S. businesses.”
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