Restoring U.S. Manufacturing Vital to National Security
The days when the United States could mobilize hundreds of factories and trainable workers to quickly produce what the nation needs to fight a war are gone. Thousands of factories are sitting idle and the workers who make our ammunition, GPS systems and build our planes are nearly all overseas.
Testifying today before a House subcommittee, several experts called for an immediate rethinking of our national economic policies so as to regain our global lead in manufacturing before it is too late. As manufacturing goes abroad, so do the skills workers need to produce today’s computer-driven, advanced technology weapons and the research and development that support them, they warned.
It’s time to make the “Made in America” label really mean something again, Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. We must stop importing most of what we consume and begin to manufacture more of it here, he said.
Manufacturing Policy Key to Economic Recovery
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Unlike our nation’s economic competitors, such as China and Germany, which have national policies geared to increasing their economic development, the United States does not. While we admonish such countries to consume more and export less, they are figuring out ways to increase exports and consume less—and, in turn, are growing their economies far faster than the United States.
In a recent letter to President Obama, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and a group of bipartisan senators wrote that the key to turning our economy around and creating good new jobs is a national industrial policy that would emphasize long-range actions to rebuild our manufacturing base, which has been decimated over the past few decades. In short, they urged the adoption of a national manufacturing policy.
The loss of manufacturing plants and jobs has stifled economic opportunity for middle-class families and compromised our ability to compete in the 21st century economy. Indeed, for the last several decades, administrations have passed up critical opportunities to formulate a rational and comprehensive manufacturing policy. Continued apathy will undermine our country’s ability to achieve energy independence and place our military readiness at risk.
Big Pix Solution Needed to Rebuild Manufacturing
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As important as a Buy America policy is, it is not enough to rebuild the nation’s manufacturing base. We must have a comprehensive industrial policy that supports manufacturing, promotes research and development, emphasizes worker training and rebuilds our infrastructure. Otherwise, the United States will no longer be the world’s top economy, participants at the America’s Future Now conference were warned today.
During a forum on “Making It in America: A Progressive Global Strategy,” Kate Gordon of the Center for American Progress said our competitors, like China and Germany, have strategies in place that are geared to increasing their economic development while the United States does not. Clyde Prestowitz, author of “Betrayal of the American Prosperity,” said when it comes to trade, we are playing an entirely different game than our competitors. While we admonish them to consume more and export less, they are figuring out ways to increase exports and consume less.
Memo to Leaders Meeting with China: Time for U.S. Policy that Aids Our Economy
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Here in Washington, D.C., President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are taking part in a big-time summit with China. Let’s hope they have substantive discussions on economic policies that aid U.S. workers. Over the past few days, several great pieces on trade and manufacturing have been published that should feed into the discussions of U.S. participants in what is officially called the “sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China.” Here’s a summary.
**U.S. “protectionism” is a myth. There’s an “untold story of protectionism,” say United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard and Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. That is, the set of barriers other governments erect to block American goods and the mercantilist measures they utilize to gain market share in the United States.
These practices range from China’s currency misalignment and massive industrial subsidies to non-tariff barriers in Korea and Japan. All these impediments have been well documented by U.S. trade officials, but the mere act of identifying these practices is now viewed as protectionism, even though taking action to eliminate them would expand world trade, reduce global imbalances and preserve the free market.
