Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Who’s Guilty For Mammoth China Trade Deficit?

The U.S. trade deficit with China is a mammoth $232 billion. America’s top trade envoy, Susan C. Schwab, has declared that she will take steps to bring down that deficit. To do so, she will have to go after the parties who are responsible for that deficit.

If she really intends to go after the guilty parties, she will find out quickly that she is a loner in the Bush administration and will be reassigned to a job like trade representative to Iceland.

The people responsible for the gigantic trade deficit are the corporate giants who dumped millions of American employees to transfer the jobs to China where labor costs are only a tiny fraction of what they are in the U.S. The firings were not limited to unskilled laborers; many were top-grade experts in their field.

Several states in the United States have actually taken steps to counter this growing outsourcing. They have withdrawn contracts from companies that indulge in outsourcing. As starters, Uncle Sam might do the same.

When an American company that once employed many workers in the U.S. dumps them to get the job done in China or any other country offering cheap labor, the finished product is intended for sale in the U.S. In short, it becomes an import that adds to our trade deficit.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.