Addressing America’s Job Problem by Pat Choate (NAPSA)—What’s good for U.S. companies may not always be good for U.S. workers. A series of prior trade deals, such as NAFTA, now enable U.S. manufacturers to move their facto- ries to penny-wage countries, such as Mexico or China, without fear of having their assets expropriated. Those trade agreements also ir allow these corporations to ship their finmee ished goods back to the U.S. market, usu- ally with few if any restrictions. : Choate > Those manufac“turers who. shift operations to foreign manufacturing platforms are dramatically lowering their labor, tax, and regulatory costs. In turn, they are using these foreign-based cost advantages to overwhelm any competitors who continue producing within the United States. In response to this new reality, thousands of U.S. factories and millions of U.S. jobs have already moved to penny wage nations, such as China. The resulting loss of American jobs is historic. Since January vastly diminished U.S. economy and an equally weakened U.S. defense industrial base. As measured by employment, the United States manufacturing base declined by almost 11 percent during the past 27 months. In specific industries, these setbacksare even greater. During the prior 27 months, for example, the United States lost more than 28 percent of its electronics components and acces- sories industry, 22 percent of the computer and office equipment industry, 17 percent of industrial equipment and machinery industry, and 16 percent of the aircraft andparts industry. Literally every major U.S. manufacturing sector is now losing jobs, except the tobacco product makers. Today, this economic hemorrhaging continues unabated, with no end in sight. Yet, two things are obvious. Thefirst is that the ongoing decline of America’s manufacturing baseis largely because of U.S. tradepolicies. The other is that if today’s U.S. trade policies remain unchanged, factory flight will accelerate, as will the loss of even jobs in the private sector. Of more good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing in the USA in manufacturing. Most of these U.S. manufacturing job losses are permanent, not cyclical, in nature. The result is a policies. e Mr. Choate is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Manufacturing Policy Project. 2001, America haslost 2.6 million these, more than 1.9 million were matters. So, too, do U.S. trade
