On December 30th, USW President, Leo W. Gerard, issued the following statement on President Bush's decision to not implement the requested quota on surging imports of China standard pipe
"Our pipe workers and their families were delivered a stunning blow by President Bush in his refusal to enforce America's trade laws following our government's own investigation that showed China imports are unfairly surging into the U.S. market.
It's clear that President Bush has told American workers that he's not on their side when it comes to advocating a message of fair trade with China.
Congress passed the Section 421 provision of our trade law in 2000 in direct response to the accession of China to the World Trade Organization as a message that America expects all member countries to play by the rules.
Today's refusal to implement a reasonable quota on a tidal wave of standard pipe imports from China reinforces the Administration's lack of response to China's currency manipulation and the record trade deficit.
USW members are not going to accept this presidential determination. We will be raising our voices in the 2006 election to send the message that America's fair trade laws must be enforced. We cannot afford the loss of family-supportive jobs to unfair trade by China."
1 comment:
I'm a retired USSteel management employee. I retired after 34 years of service seven years ago and was very lucky and happy to have received a comfortable pension. I'm happy that I was able to retire when I did so, because I saw the handwriting on the wall that said that the steel industry was hurting from within and from outside forces.
I remember some many years ago when USSteel made a big show about how "Foreign Steel Steals Jobs" when they trucked a huge pipe around the United States including Pittsburgh where I signed it protesting about "dumped" steel imports.
Steel and other cheap and non fair-traded imports are quickly killing our country's economy. I wonder why so many people in our country do not realize that they may initially pay less up front for some of their purchases, but will ultimately pay a much, much higher cost with the loss of jobs for our own workers.
If we can't keep jobs for our own, who will pay taxes-the rich? They never did! If people here aren't working, who will support them, the government, with a few dollars a month for hand-outs that won't even allow them them to feed their kids and pay their mortages? And where will the government get that money in the first place if fewer and fewer people do not have good-paying, decent jobs? Will they continue to print more money, driving up inflation to the point where even those cheap imports are unaffordable to all but the rich who STILL pay no taxes?
Come on, Americans, wake up!
Write your well-paid elected representatives and tell them to enforce our trade laws before it is too late!
Well, it may be too late for some sleazy members of the congress to read your letters anyway and to do anything about them while they're in jail for accepting bribes from 1,000's of lobbyists! But that's another rant for me to get on later!
Paul D. Eikenbary
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