Recall the Bush administration didn't lift a damn finger on China's dumping practices.
The United States imported about $91 million worth of the product from China in 2008. Steel grating is used in industrial floors, docks, ramps, drainage covers, staircases and other applications.
The trade case is one of about a dozen brought by U.S. companies in 2009 against Chinese-made goods that they said have benefited from government subsidies or are being sold in the United States at less than fair value.
The Commerce Department said it set a preliminary anti-dumping duty of 14.36 percent on four Chinese producers or exporters in the steel grating investigations.
Shocks of all shocks the WTO ruled in the United States favor on China restricting U.S. imports, one of many, many unfair trade practices by China.
The World Trade Organization's top arbitrators upheld a ruling that China is illegally restricting imports of U.S. music, films and books, and Washington pushed forward with a new case accusing China of manipulating the prices for key ingredients in steel and aluminum production.
Monday's verdict by the WTO's appellate body knocked down China's objections to an August decision that came down decisively against Beijing's policy of forcing American media producers to route their business through state-owned companies.
If China fails over the next year to bring its practices in line with international trade law, the U.S. can ask the WTO to authorize commercial sanctions against Chinese goods.
Few people realize that for the past fifty years the policy of the United States government has been to get rid of jobs.
So says former Senator Fritz Hollings in SOBER UP, a piece calling for an end of the inane rhetoric and a start to seriously formulate trade, labor policy that is in the national economic interest.
Hollings notes on the Stimulus:
With stimulus, we bail as fast as we can to stop the leaks, but do nothing to plug the hole in the hull ripped by offshoring. Stimulation can be a total success and we’ll still loss more jobs than are created.
Hollings calls cash on what globalization is really all about:
Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a country cheaper to produce. What we have now is a trade war, without guns.
Just when you think it can't get any more obvious, we get this:
President Barack Obama raised hopes for creating an Asia-Pacific free-trade region by announcing Saturday that the U.S. would seek to join a smaller group seen as a precursor to a broader Pacific Rim agreement.
News that the U.S. would participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, joining Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, was announced in Tokyo and Singapore, drawing applause at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
"Significant steps like the TPP are important to help keep up the momentum in our efforts to realize the ... vision" to create a region-wide free trade area, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told other leaders at their weekend summit here.
September exports of $132.0 billion and imports of $168.4 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $36.5 billion, up from $30.8 billion in August, revised.
September exports were $3.7 billion more than August exports of $128.3 billion. September imports were $9.3 billion more than August imports of $159.1 billion.
The deficit, which detracts from GDP, increased 5.7 billion in one month, or 18.2%. That's the largest jump in a decade.
The balance of services remained stable, both imports and exports grew by $0.2 billion.
Business groups are worried by the potential effects of provisions banning the import of all goods made with convict labor, forced labor, or forced or indentured child labor that were included in a customs bill sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA)...
These groups are examining the ramifications of the bill's provisions, especially in light of the bill's requirements that a newly created office in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually report to Congress on the volume and value of goods made with child labor, forced labor or convict labor that have been stopped at the border.
Who? What? CIC stands for the Chinese Investment Corporation. CIC is a sovereign wealth fund for the Chinese Government that is buying up natural resources all over the world. Yesterday it was announced that CIC is buying a 15% interest in AES, an American based power generation company:
A CIC unit will buy 125.5 million in new shares for $12.60 each, or $1.58 billion, Arlington, Virginia-based AES said today in a statement. CIC will own about 15 percent of the power company. AES also signed a letter of intent to sell a 35 percent interest in its wind-power operations to CIC for $571 million.
The emphasis on that last sentence was mine. Of course AES executives are spinning this as a great thing for the company:
Ya know that meager, token Buy American clause in the Stimulus? Well, surprise, surprise, of course they are still out to kill it. So here comes Canada, now seeking an exemption in order to bid on U.S. contracts.
In USTR Kirk: Deal With Canada On 'Buy American' Not Yet Sealed, of course our U.S. trade representative is trying to subvert a clause passed by Congress and ship U.S. taxpayer stimulus money off to Canada, instead of U.S. manufacturers. It appears the new plan is to just give U.S. manufacturers priority, uh huh in contract bids.
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