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Migrant workers fall victims of unfavorable US trade policies

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-13 17:20

BEIJING: In the last decade, Chinese migrant workers had worked hard to produce goods for global consumers including Americans, yet an increasing number of them has unfortunately become victims of unfavorable US trade policies.

The latest example involved a possible US restriction of importing made-in-China seamless carbon and alloy steel standard pipes.

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Washington said last Wednesday that it had started anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probes into Chinese steel pipes at the request of the United Steelworkers and three other US petitioners, which requested a 98.37-percent duty against Chinese pipes.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said the plight facing the US steel sector fundamentally resulted from serious decline of consumer strength and demand after the economic crisis rather than Chinese imports.

The probe could probably cause no major impact on China's steel industry since the to-be-affected pipe exports accounted for less than 1 percent of China's total steel exports in the first eight months, according to a research released by the Everbright Securities.

But, of significance was that it was the third case of its kind launched by Washington since last month. These cases indicated that the US government could increasingly resort to similar policies, which smell of strong protectionism, despite its repeated pledges on free trade given US record high of unemployment rate in September.

In September, the US administration said it had imposed preliminary duties up to 31 percent on Chinese steel pipes used in oil and gas wells. In another action, Washington approved punitive tariffs of as much as 35 percent on imported Chinese tyres.

In the last few years, owing to hefty labor cost and a notable drop of consumer demand in the US, American manufacturers were facing increasingly fierce competition and some of them were forced to shut down their American factories and move jobs to other lower-cost labor markets, including India and China.

According to the pro-labor Alliance for American Manufacturing, the US tyre manufacturing industry had lost a total of 5,100 jobs in the last eight years since 2000.

Currently, regardless of evidences of a recovery, the US economy was still losing jobs.

"Keeping the jobs is the most important aim of (US) trade protection," Luo Chuanyin, a long-time observer on the employment issue, wrote in her blog.

Luo and other analysts said it was morally unacceptable that Chinese workers should become victims of the US economic failure as the US raised import tariffs and cut Chinese imports.

The tyre case alone, according to China Rubber Industry Association, could affect the employment of 100,000 Chinese tire workers.

Compared to US tire workers, who earned more than $20 per hour, Chinese tire workers, many of whom are migrant workers from the vast poor countryside, earned less than two US dollars per hour. And often, the salaries were major income of their families.

Luo said it was unclear how many Chinese workers might lose jobs if the US finally restricted import of steel pipes.

"In the market economy, every individual has dual nature -- one is to pursue maximum economic interest while the other is to follow moral code. So does every nation," Luo said.

That's why Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has repeatedly recommended a book by Adam Smith -- The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, she added.