Dumping

My son arrived in Tokyo today, besides missing him and wondering what's he doing, it sparked memories of how we first feared the Japanese taking our auto manufacturing from us, then our TVs. Japan still has our cars, Toyota may well be the largest car manufacturer in the world by years end, but it lost much of its electronic business to China. Does Japan fear what China can do to its jobs like we do here at home?

Last night on Lou Dobbs, Kitty Pilgrim filled in as the achor and covered a very interesting story about China dumping agricultural products in the US and our government is nearly powerless to stop it. It seems that our recourse is to fine the company doing the dumping, but before pour government can collect, the company goes out of business and reopens under a different name.

Here's a quote from the show--

PILGRIM: Tonight, this nation's failed trade policies are jeopardizing the future of U.S. farmers. Washington is refusing to uphold trade laws and collect anti-dumping duties against communist China, and Congress is standing by as China dumps cheap agricultural products on the American marketplace.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bill Rhodes is a central Florida honey producer. Since 2003, he's seen American honey prices plunge from $1.50 a pound to less than 80 cents today. He blames a flood of even cheaper Chinese honey and the failure of the U.S. government to collect anti-dumping duties owed by honey importers.

BILL RHODES, HONEY PRODUCER: We are getting killed, not only people in the bee industry, but any other form of agriculture that has to compete with cheap labor.

WIAN: Rhodes' employees earn $9 to $12 an hour. Fuel costs are also squeezing him. But China is the biggest problem. China paid just over $1 million in anti-dumping penalties to U.S. honey producers in 2005. But the Customs Department failed to collect nearly $10 million owed by Chinese importers. They often exploit a loophole in U.S. law allowing importers to delay paying anti-dumping duties for years. When Customs come to collect, the importers are out of business, operating under another name.

MICHAEL COURSEY, TRADE ATTORNEY: This is fraud on a scale that Customs was totally unprepared to meet. The Chinese, who are engaging in this type of activity, are exploiting weaknesses in U.S. law.

WIAN: Other American agricultural products, including garlic, canned mushrooms, apple juice concentrate, and crawfish, are also impacted. In fact, for every dollar Customs collected in the anti- dumping duties on those five products since 2003, it has failed to collect $15. Critics say Congress, not Customs, is to blame for failing to require importers to post a cash deposit to cover anti- dumping duties.

Is this what our government terms as free trade? Free for the Chinese maybe! Free to do what ever it wants to harm our economy. Free trade maybe, but certainly not fair trade. How many more jobs do we have to lose before our representatives, senators and other elected officials wake up and taste the bitter taste of honey dumped on our shores?