The Golden Rule of Trade

Floor Speech

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, before all of the pomp and circumstance of tonight's State dinner honoring Chinese President Hu Jintao, a closed-door meeting took place between President Obama, the Chinese President, and the power brokers from some of the largest global corporations that seem to create more jobs outside this country than inside it: Steve Ballmer of Microsoft; Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric; Jim McNerney of Boeing; David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group; Ellenn Kullman, the CEO of DuPont. And many greedy Wall Street bankers showed up: John Thornton, the chairman of HSBC Holdings; and Lloyd Blankfein, my gosh, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs--where have we heard about them before?--whose imprudent firms are responsible for the economic meltdown that the rest of America is trying to dig out of as we speak tonight.

Too often, these international corporations and megabanks have taken America's ingenuity and hard work that were built with so much effort and shipped them overseas, destroying American jobs and ballooning our half trillion dollar trade deficit.

China remains a communist country, and it is a command-and-control economy described as ``Market Leninism''--not free enterprise. Yes, China's people should be able to develop their land and their economy and improve their lives. They surely need it. But their growth should not come at the expense of American jobs and our businesses and our workers.

The moment has arrived to deal with China as the great economic power that it is and proceed on the basis of reciprocity. If a treaty affects our companies one way, we'll treat them the same way. If they exclude our investments and our imports, we will exclude their investments and their imports. We should give them the exact same deal as they give us. That is the Golden Rule of trade.

While we wish China well, we must defend the interests of jobs in our country, and even more, the highest political ideals to which we aspire. And our highest calling is freedom.

It is not a coincidence that America's trade deficit with Communist China has ballooned since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001. The trade deficit for 2010 with China and the United States alone stood at $253 billion--a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Since 2001, jobs in our country in manufacturing decreased by 25 percent. And according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, for every billion dollars of trade deficit we maintain, 5,405 American jobs are lost. This means in 2010 alone, over 1,400,000 more jobs were lost in our country attributable just to our trade deficit with China. This is a major factor in the weakness that our economy is suffering.

China consistently disregards international trade laws. She manipulates her currency, and she does nothing to protect American intellectual property. In fact, of all of the products seized at the U.S. border for infringement of intellectual property rights in 2009, 79 percent were from China.

Communist China's illegal subsidies and no-interest loans to Chinese companies have put American firms at a serious competitive disadvantage. In fact, there's a new 15-year tax holiday for solar companies. And a major firm in Massachusetts just announced it's closing its doors and going to China.

Dumping of products like steel pipes cripple the American steel industry. And earlier today, the White House announced China will purchase 200 Boeing aircraft. Isn't that convenient. A few airplanes. It's great to hear, but positive press releases for one-time purchases will do nothing to erase the $253 billion deficit that grows with China every year.

Holding China accountable and creating an environment where Communist China's best interest is to follow international trade laws, to protect intellectual property rights, to stop illegal subsidies and no-interest loans to Chinese companies, and to further work to create a level playing field for all is in the hands of the Obama administration, the new majority in this House, and our colleagues in the Senate.

Congress and the administration must stand up most importantly for freedom and the rule of law. For American businesses and our workers and our economy to prosper, we have to hold Communist China accountable to the Golden Rule. And that means reciprocity, not Market Leninism.

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