This statement was released today by United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard

(Pittsburgh) --  “Today President Obama proved once again how important enforcing our trade laws is to job creation in America.   He’s taking China to task for the import duties they have slapped on U.S.-made vehicles. Despite the fact that China has virtually unfettered access to our market, they constantly block access to their market for our competitive products.

“Last year, Chinese consumers purchased roughly 18 million vehicles. But they allowed only 106,000 vehicles made by U.S. workers into their market.  Obviously, for the Chinese, even that was too many.  They are flooding our market with auto parts that are produced with massive illegal Chinese subsidies and benefit from numerous other predatory and protectionist policies. Their exports to the United States have contributed to the loss of more than 400,000 jobs in the auto parts sector.   Imports of Chinese auto parts have skyrocketed by almost 900 percent since 2000 ... more