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The looming Chinese currency valuation crisis and the continued yawning U.S. trade deficit reflect one sad and simple fact: America manufactures less and less while foreign competitors dump cheap goods on our shores more and more. And it’s facilitated by U.S. trade policies that allow overseas competition to undercut American workers – policies that have led to the loss of 4 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade alone.
America’s trade policy brings to mind the words of the old cartoonist Walt Kelly, “We’ve met the enemy, and he is us.” Now workers are looking to President Obama to put American trade policy back on the side of American workers.
President Obama can start with the Defense Department’s $35 billion Air Force airborne refueling tanker contract. In 2008, Pentagon bureaucrats nearly awarded the tanker contract to Europe's Airbus despite a World Trade Organization ruling that the company uses illegal government subsidies to destroy American aerospace manufacturing jobs—as many as 65,000 according to the U.S. Trade Representative. In fact, the European tanker was built with $5 billion of those very subsidies.
With nearly everyone else at the Bush White House and Pentagon asleep at the switch, the General Accounting Office slammed the brakes on the Pentagon’s back room deal to hand the contract to the France-based company. But the GAO only objected to irregularities it found in the contracting process, not the fact that Airbus uses illegal subsidies, or that handing Airbus the contract would rob Americans of another 50,000 jobs, including 2,500 in Kansas. As a result, Airbus is back peddling their subsidized plane and American jobs still hang in the balance.
What was most puzzling about the Airbus scandal was that their A330 aircraft failed to meet the Air Force’s own requirements. The Air Force requested a mid-sized, fuel efficient plane that could operate at smaller air bases in Europe and Asia and that would save taxpayers money on fuel costs. Airbus’s A330 is the Lincoln Continental of tankers — too big to park on small air bases and a veritable gas guzzler.
In fact, an American-made tanker — manufactured by the Boeing Company — is widely touted by pilots and experts to best fit the Air Force’s needs for a mid-sized aircraft that is affordable to fly and maintain. Boeing and its American workforce have been building tankers since Harry S. Truman sat in the Oval Office. Their new tanker is based on the popular 767 aircraft, 1,000 of which are being flown by major commercial airlines all over the world. Add to this the fact that a Boeing tanker will employ more than 50,000 American workers and the tanker competition seems to be a no-brainer. Kansas alone would benefit from 2,500 jobs and an estimated $3 billion in annual economic impact if Boeing is selected.
No one is saying that the Europeans shouldn’t have a fair shot at competing for U.S. military contract. But the emphasis should be on the word “fair.” Airbus didn’t play fair with American workers when they built their tanker with $5 billion of subsidies. At a minimum, the huge advantage of these subsidies should be discounted in Airbus’s bid. The Obama Defense Department should resist the cries of European lobbyists to steer the contract award process their way.
American workers are not asking for special deals or protectionism. We demand a level playing field where we can bid for work at home or overseas and not be hamstrung by illegal subsidies and backroom deals for U.S. contracts. That shouldn’t be asking too much, but it would be a welcome “change” that President Obama and Congress can deliver on a bipartisan basis.
Jack Otero served as deputy undersecretary of labor for international affairs in the Clinton administration and is a former vice president of the AFL-CIO.
The looming Chinese currency valuation crisis and the continued yawning U.S. trade deficit reflect one sad and simple fact: America manufactures less and less while foreign competitors dump cheap goods on our shores more and more. And it’s facilitated by U.S. trade policies that allow overseas competition to undercut American workers – policies that have led to the loss of 4 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade alone.
America’s trade policy brings to mind the words of the old cartoonist Walt Kelly, “We’ve met the enemy, and he is us.” Now workers are looking to President Obama to put American trade policy back on the side of American workers.
President Obama can start with the Defense Department’s $35 billion Air Force airborne refueling tanker contract. In 2008, Pentagon bureaucrats nearly awarded the tanker contract to Europe's Airbus despite a World Trade Organization ruling that the company uses illegal government subsidies to destroy American aerospace manufacturing jobs—as many as 65,000 according to the U.S. Trade Representative. In fact, the European tanker was built with $5 billion of those very subsidies.
With nearly everyone else at the Bush White House and Pentagon asleep at the switch, the General Accounting Office slammed the brakes on the Pentagon’s back room deal to hand the contract to the France-based company. But the GAO only objected to irregularities it found in the contracting process, not the fact that Airbus uses illegal subsidies, or that handing Airbus the contract would rob Americans of another 50,000 jobs, including 2,500 in Kansas. As a result, Airbus is back peddling their subsidized plane and American jobs still hang in the balance.
What was most puzzling about the Airbus scandal was that their A330 aircraft failed to meet the Air Force’s own requirements. The Air Force requested a mid-sized, fuel efficient plane that could operate at smaller air bases in Europe and Asia and that would save taxpayers money on fuel costs. Airbus’s A330 is the Lincoln Continental of tankers — too big to park on small air bases and a veritable gas guzzler.
In fact, an American-made tanker — manufactured by the Boeing Company — is widely touted by pilots and experts to best fit the Air Force’s needs for a mid-sized aircraft that is affordable to fly and maintain. Boeing and its American workforce have been building tankers since Harry S. Truman sat in the Oval Office. Their new tanker is based on the popular 767 aircraft, 1,000 of which are being flown by major commercial airlines all over the world. Add to this the fact that a Boeing tanker will employ more than 50,000 American workers and the tanker competition seems to be a no-brainer. Kansas alone would benefit from 2,500 jobs and an estimated $3 billion in annual economic impact if Boeing is selected.
No one is saying that the Europeans shouldn’t have a fair shot at competing for U.S. military contract. But the emphasis should be on the word “fair.” Airbus didn’t play fair with American workers when they built their tanker with $5 billion of subsidies. At a minimum, the huge advantage of these subsidies should be discounted in Airbus’s bid. The Obama Defense Department should resist the cries of European lobbyists to steer the contract award process their way.
American workers are not asking for special deals or protectionism. We demand a level playing field where we can bid for work at home or overseas and not be hamstrung by illegal subsidies and backroom deals for U.S. contracts. That shouldn’t be asking too much, but it would be a welcome “change” that President Obama and Congress can deliver on a bipartisan basis.
Jack Otero served as deputy undersecretary of labor for international affairs in the Clinton administration and is a former vice president of the AFL-CIO.
