President Donald Trump addressed Chinese trade infractions on Thursday with a plan that both enflamed fears about an impending trade war and received praise for finally holding the nation accountable for its actions.
President Trump's plan was three-fold: level tariffs on Chinese imports to the tune of $50 billion, restrict and investigate Chinese investments in the United States, and take action against the country at the World Trade Organization. The decision comes after an investigation into China's history of intellectual property theft.
The move was praised by Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) President Scott Paul. In a statement, Paul says, “There’s no disagreement that China cheats. The only question is, do we continue to ignore China’s cheating or do we finally act decisively to stop it? The same experts who assured us China would reform when it entered the world trade system are now saying tariffs won’t work."
According to the AAM, the intellectual property violations have come at the cost of American jobs. Paul says Trump's decision will be criticized by companies who have benefited from exporting jobs to China, but he doesn't want to hear their "bogus complaints against tariffs."
"If China doesn’t play by the rules, it should lose some access to the U.S. market, which it values the most," says Paul. "Manufacturers of everything from computers to metals have been forced to compete against the very products they spent years and significant financial resources to develop after Chinese companies illegally lifted proprietary knowledge."
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons released a statement ahead of Trump's announcement. It stresses that the U.S. needs to be forceful, but civil to limit potential blowback on the economy.
"As we’ve seen for years, China’s theft of American intellectual property and their use of unfair trade practices represent clear threats to manufacturers’ competitiveness and the jobs of American manufacturing workers. That’s why manufacturers have welcomed President Trump’s focus on addressing this serious problem," Timmons says.
“Any actions taken globally must be well crafted to lead to concrete solutions and limit damage back to the U.S. economy, especially since trade overseas supports the jobs of millions of U.S. manufacturing workers.” Timmons says that tariffs will likely create significant costs for manufacturers and American consumers.
Timmons suggests that the tariffs could provoke China to take further destructive actions against American manufacturing workers. He suggests that the only way to make lasting progress is to "forge a fair, binding and enforceable trade agreement with China that requires them to end these practices once and for all.”
"We’ve lost millions of good jobs to China," adds Paul. "The administration’s proposed actions will help to restore some balance with China, as well as to recreate an ecosystem to innovate, design, and make products here that we can sell abroad.”