U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown...
Trade Matters for Ohio Workers  
October 26, 2011 

The United States Senate last week acknowledged what too many Ohio workers and manufacturers already know: that we are in a trade war. We took steps to fight back by passing the biggest bipartisan jobs bill this session of Congress: my bipartisan bill to combat Chinese currency manipulation. 

The Commerce Department released new trade deficit numbers showing that the U.S. trade deficit with China had widened to $27 billion. And recently, a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showed that in the last ten years, we’ve lost 2.8 million jobs to China due to the trade deficit—including 1.9 million manufacturing jobs and more than 100,000 Ohio jobs. 

But in a classic case of one step forward, three steps back, Congress hastily passed three separate free trade agreements – with Korea, Panama, and Colombia. 

President Obama submitted three free trade agreements – conceived in the same style as NAFTA and CAFTA – and demanded immediate action. Rather than allow enough time for careful review, Congress rushed through these irreversible agreements that reward lobbyists for major corporations and ignore the workers who have helped build our country. 

We’ve been down this road before. 

The pro-trade agreement crowd is right. Workers do benefit from U.S. trade agreements – they just tend to live in other countries. These new, NAFTA-style trade agreements will increase the export of one thing we cannot afford to lose: good-paying American jobs. 

Like most Americans, I’m for trade. Like most Americans, I want more of it. And like most Americans, I have a problem with some rules that govern our trade policy because they favor corporate or investor interests above workers’ interests – and even our national interests. We cannot afford to continue this trend of putting corporations before citizens. 

That’s why I opposed the permanent trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. 

Previous Presidents have championed free trade agreements that have meant big losses for Ohio workers. They promised 200,000 immediate U.S. jobs from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); but some economists estimate that more than 600,000 U.S. jobs have been lost to Mexico since NAFTA was approved. Although the Obama Administration is making more modest predictions on job gains, additional trade agreements drafted from a textbook that is twenty years out-of-print is not a solution to the problems we currently face. 

A senior citizen recently told me that she “want[s] to buy American-made goods, but everything on the shelves is made in China.” 

That’s because our trade policies don’t favor American workers and manufacturers. According to Policy Matters Ohio, more than 119,000 Ohioans have been eligible for trade adjustment assistance – the unemployment service that helps workers who have lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade find new careers – since NAFTA was approved. Foreign trade with countries like China has transformed once vibrant neighborhoods into communities littered with vacant storefronts. 

The bipartisan bill I introduced, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011, which passed in the Senate, is a good first step toward leveling the playing field for American workers. This jobs legislation will curtail China’s ability to compete with an unfair advantage in the world market. 

Until we address the inequity at the root of our trade policy, trade agreements will continue to bare rotten fruit. We must cultivate fair trade policies. 

To that end, I am asking President Obama to work with Congress to develop net domestic job creation benchmarks in our trade agreements and measure U.S. imports in markets with our trade partners. We need swift action to open up more markets beyond those with which we share free trade agreements. As a member of the President’s Export Council, I have convened the Ohio Export Advisory Council, made up of leading CEOs and small businesses, to create a stronger trade agenda that opens more markets. 

With ideas generated in these roundtables, I introduced the Reciprocal Market Access Act. The Act would help the U.S. Trade Representative ensure trade agreements result in better market access for U.S. producers and products. Under this legislation, if other countries do not open their market to U.S. goods, then the U.S. cannot reduce or eliminate tariffs on similar products from those nations in any trade agreement. This legislation would help improve the terms of future trade deals, so American manufacturers can finally compete on a level playing field. And it doesn’t cost a cent. 

Let’s develop a modern trade policy that connects Panamanians with Ohioans. I want truck drivers in South Korea to rely on tires made in Akron or business owners in Colombia to depend on technology developed in Columbus. We can do this by improving America’s trade policy and negotiating smart trade agreements to create new jobs right here at home.