China has been gaining market share, and America losing it, in a range of high-value, high-tech industries. China is now the world’s top producer of steel, out-producing Japan, Russia, India and the United States combined. China has doubled its glass production even as the U.S. trade deficit in glass with China has tripled. It is widely known that China makes toys, clothing, home goods and plastics in all shapes and sizes, but it has also been expanding exports of computer and electronic products, aircraft, auto parts and machinery. 

This trend is no accident—the Chinese government is engaging in a purposeful strategy that supports its manufacturing sector across a wide spectrum of industries and intentionally harms those sectors in the economies of its trading partners—including the United States. The Chinese government’s strategies include:

• Direct subsidies (cash grants and low-cost loans) to Chinese businesses;
• Manipulating the value of its currency to make its goods artificially cheaper and American goods sent to China artificially more expensive;
• Providing more favorable treatment to Chinese producers, products and services than to their American competitors;
• Failure to crack down on counterfeit brands, pirated software and other forms of intellectual property theft. 

All of these actions are prohibited by the international trade agreements that China has joined, particularly the World Trade Organization. Yet few governments have acted to hold China accountable. Under President Obama, the U.S. government  has taken some needed action (but not on the one issue that could make the most difference—currency), but it is too little, and in most cases, too late. By the time the Obama administration challenged Chinese government subsidy grants of $6.7 million and $22.5 million to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers that agreed to buy only domestic Chinese components, China had already built the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturing and created highly competitive Chinese producers for almost every component.

As long as the U.S. government’s economic policy is dictated by multinational corporations more intent on seeking profits than promoting the long-term health of the American economy, the American people are the losers. Rather than focusing on putting profits on corporate balance sheets, lawmakers must focus on putting paychecks in workers’ pockets. 

America’s working families need a government that is serious about creating jobs. Working people don’t need corporate tax loopholes and Wall Street bailouts, they need policies that will put U.S. workers to work in new, high-growth sectors, including wind and solar energy, advanced electronics and other 21st century technologies.

The president and Congress can immediately create jobs by addressing Chinese currency manipulation, investing in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, increasing the availability of high-quality, affordable job training and education and helping state and local governments continue to provide the dependable local fire, police, library and road services this country expects. China is investing in its future and working hard to employ its people. The American people deserve no less.