On Thursday night, 2,500 people attended the Town Hall meeting at Point Mallard Park in Decatur. The meeting was sponsored by Nucor Steel Corporation of Decatur. Nucor manufactures steel from recycled materials, and produces 22 million tons each year at its 49 facilities located in 23 states.

Nucor officials welcomed the crowd and presented the Men of Steel award to members of the 128th Military Police Company, and the 152nd Military Police Company. These units include several Athens residents. A Morgan County high school band and ROTC unit entertained the audience, and posted the Colors. An excellent dinner was served by Athens resident Mark Whitt and his staff from the Whitt’s Barbecue stores in Decatur and Athens.

The meeting was held to give local people a simple explanation of the complicated trade war that exists between the United States and other nations of the world, especially China. Three officials from Nucor spoke to the audience, and I think we came away with an understanding of what is happening to our nation’s economy which affects our local economy, and what we may be able to do about it.

Since 1979, 6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States, 3 million of them in the last 10 years. 70,000 of these jobs were lost from Alabama from June, 1998, to December, 2007, and it is believed four more jobs ceased to exist for each one lost. That’s 280,000 jobs! There are 300,000 jobs remaining in Alabama’s manufacturing sector. America is not losing these jobs because we are not competitive, but we lose them due to the abusive and illegal tactics used by China and our other global trade partners to enhance their own economies at the expense of our own.

Our global trade relationships allow the flow of goods through the world. Risks are associated with trade, and rules and agreements have been established to govern free trade between nations. These are called Free Trade Agreements, and they exist to provide a level playing field. In other words, every nation is even and no one should have the advantage over the other in the course of trade.

The problem is that our government is not enforcing these agreements. A trade deficit exists when the value of goods imported from a nation exceeds the value of goods we export to that nation. Our total trade deficit with all nations in 1992 was $56 billion. In 2008 it was $750 billion. Our government needs to pressure our partners to abide by the rules and agreements, and not give away the store. It needs to protect America by allowing us to compete with other nations in a fair manner.

Foreign trade is good for both parties, as long as it is competitive and transacted in a fair manner. A trade deficit of $256 billion exists with China. This means a loss of manufacturing jobs and the goods they would produce in America, and fewer goods available to the Chinese people. This is bad for both nations. China and other emerging nations take shortcuts to hasten their growth at our expense. These shortcuts take away good, high-paying jobs from America, and send sub-standard, unsafe goods into America.

These shortcuts include subsidies, which are discounted land costs, discounted energy costs, low interest loans, and debt forgiveness which drives their exports and increases the trade deficit; currency manipulation, which keeps the value of their currency artificially low compared to the dollar which make their exports to us cheaper and our imports to them expensive; climate changes, caused by a lack of environmental concern in many of the world’s nations that do not have the same environmental solutions as America, and encourages U.S. companies to move jobs to foreign nations where the rules are not so stringent. All of these shortcuts are taken by our partners in an attempt to weaken existing trade laws, and Congress has not acted to strengthen the trade laws.

What can we do? The answer is for Congress to enforce and strengthen the existing free trade laws. They haven’t done this for many years.

Why? Someone doesn’t want it done. Someone is making money and does not want a change. We need to be very concerned about the new Congressman we will elect to represent our district this year. Our new congressman should understand that we only want our jobs here in north Alabama to be given the opportunity to be involved in fair competition with jobs in China. On a level playing field, we will win every time.