As someone whose ability to make money had seriously been compromised by trade with China (Furniture), I have concerns about Chinese trade. We held our own when there was competition from Mexico and there was a lot of gloom and doom in the beginning, but China is a different matter. When people work 12 hour shifts for 363 days a year for $2.00 a day, it is hard to compete. We treated our slaves better, While industry deals with polution at a tremendous cost in this country the Chinese simply let it float off into the atmosphere.
If you believe that polution is linked to Global warming, (I don't think we have enough information yet) you would have to believe that China's polution is a major contributor. I would think that if the Chinese can control their people enough to tell them how many children they can have, they could control their industry enough to keep polution down.
The problem is that we can't compete in manufacturing in this country becasue of the level or regulation we have to deal with. The cost to manufacturing of EPA, OSHA and other federal regulations is stagering. I can't see why we can't impose restrictions on trade that are linked to polution and other similar issues. After all, the concern for polution that is driven by the EPA is a global concern isn't it?
Just my thoughts.
Dick Jones
