During his campaign, Biden laid out his economic agenda for the country, called “Build Back Better, which includes a $700 billion investment in procurement and research and development for new technologies such as biotech, clean energy and artificial intelligence.” The goal is that “the new plan will help create 5 million new jobs.” As Vice President under President Obama, Biden advocated engagement with China, but changed his tune during the campaign, “calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “thug. ” While he repeatedly criticized “Trump’s trade and tariff war with China as being ineffective and failing to protect the US economy,” the Biden Administration must maintain the steel and aluminum tariffs order to have any hope of achieving his goal.
During his Jan. 19th confirmation hearing, Biden’s incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
“President Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China. I disagree very much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the basic principle was the right one. And I think that that’s actually helpful to our foreign policy.”
An article in The Balance reported that the U.S. trade deficit with China was $315.1 billion in 2012, rose to $367.3 billion by 2015 before dropping to $346.8 billion the next year. By 2018, it had increased to $418.9 billion, before falling to $345.2 billion in 2019.”
The big drop was partly due to the 25% tariff on steel imports that President Trump enacted on top of a 10% tariff previously leveraged on aluminum. The tariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018, impacting $34 billion worth of Chinese imports.
The article reported that “The U.S. trade deficit with China for 2020 was $283.6 billion as of November of that year. That’s 18% less than 2019‘s $345.2 billion deficit.”
The article explained that
“The trade deficit exists because U.S. exports to China were only $110 billion while imports from China were $393.6 billion. The biggest categories of U.S. imports from China are typically computers; cell phones; apparel; and toys, games, and sporting goods.2 A lot of these imports are from U.S. manufacturers that send raw materials to China for low-cost assembly. Once shipped back to the United States, they are considered imports.”
In the same vein, Reuters reported that the U. S. trade deficit narrowed in 2019 for the first time in six years, stating “At the height of the U.S.-China trade war last year, Washington slapped tariffs on billions worth of Chinese goods, including consumer products, thumping imports. The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China plunged 17.6% to $345.6 billion in 2019 “
On November 17, 2020, IndustryWeek published an opinion article by Jeff Ferry, chief economist at the Coalition for a Prosperous America. Ferry wrote “it’s clear that the Trump administration’s steel tariffs have generated a boom in steel investment and a shift to newer technologies that are creating high-paying jobs for thousands of new steelworkers…The steel tariffs have succeeded by reducing the level of these imports in the U.S. This has allowed domestic steel producers to make needed investments while taking the industry forward with confidence.” He cited that “U.S. Steel Corporation produced the first ton of steel at a brand-new facility in Fairfield, Alabama, “Nucor Steel has started building a new steel plate mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky, that will employ 400 workers at an average annual salary of $72,800,” and “Commercial Metals Company announced plans to build a second rebar steel mill in Mesa, Arizona, that will employ 185 workers.”
He noted that “With steel imports down, America’s steelmakers have started investing at home. In addition to Nucor and US Steel, companies like Cleveland-Cliffs, Steel Dynamics, CMC, and AK Steel have invested billions of dollars in at least 16 major new projects throughout the nation. The top five US steel companies more than doubled their total annual investments between 2017 to 2019, from $1.5 billion to $4.2 billion.”
It’s been great that the 25% tariffs on steel have saved our critical American steel industry, but the tariffs have not been high enough to benefit most of the manufacturers in the parts producing domestic supply chain.
As a sales representative for American manufacturers that produce molded and other fabricated mechanical parts, we sometimes get feedback on quotes we lose showing that we would need tariffs of between 200 – 300% to be able to compete with Chinese prices, especially for molded rubber and plastic parts. Sometimes, the finished part price is less than or equal to the prices for the material used to make these parts. Our industry would love for tariffs to be higher and across the board on all products produced in China and imported to the U.S.
As I wrote in my last article of 2020, tariffs have helped manufacturers return to the U.S. through reshoring. We gained business in 2019 and 2020 from companies returning metal fabrication from China to the U.S.
In an article on January 22, 2021, “Biden’s Team Could Be as Hawkish on China as Trump’s, Kenneth Rapoza, CPA Industry Analyst, wrote:
“The Trump Administration got China right. It set the table on China going forward, changing the age-old establishment centerpiece of waiting for allies to okay things following one diplomatic meeting after the next. Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, Wilbur Ross and Trump himself took action, and showed that tariffs on China do not mean prices will rise across the board. The stock market didn’t collapse because of the trade war. There seems to be good momentum on China.”
I urge the Biden Administration to keep up the momentum on reducing our trade deficit with China and increasing higher-paying manufacturing jobs by maintaining or expanding tariffs on Chinese imported goods.
To appease his “Green Deal” followers, he could call the tariffs “Greenhouse Gas Emission fees” because China’s manufacturers depend on polluting coal-fired power plants due to lack of environmental regulations like we have in the U.S. Many American power plants use cleaner-burning natural gas. The welfare of our economy and our national security depend on using every tactic we have available to thwart China’s goal of becoming the world’s superpower of the 21st Century.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/made-in-america-made-in-china-quality.jpg7351400Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2021-01-27 11:44:072021-01-27 11:44:12Biden Administration Must Maintain Tariffs on Chinese Goods
The United States gradually lost manufacturing jobs from the peak of 19.5 million in 1979 to 17.3 million by early 2000. However, after China was granted Most Favored Nation status that year, the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. accelerated dramatically as American manufacturers moved manufacturing offshore and cheaper Chinese goods drove U.S. manufacturers out of business.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs from the middle of the year 2000 to the middle of 2010. Fortunately, we have been slowly regaining manufacturing jobs since 2010 thanks to a great extent to the efforts of the Reshoring Initiative.
In April 2010, the Reshoring Initiative was founded by Harry Moser, retired president of GF AgieCharmilles LLC, a leading machine tool supplier in Lincolnshire, Illinois, to facilitate returning manufacturing to America from offshore by providing the right tool at the right time to with the creation of the Total Cost of Ownership™ worksheet calculator spreadsheet. To help companies make better sourcing decisions, the Reshoring Initiative provides the Total Cost of Ownership™ spreadsheet for free to help manufacturers calculate the real impact offshoring has on their bottom line. The website provides an online library of more than 7,000 articles about cases of successful reshoring.
The brief definition of TCO is an estimate of the direct and indirect costs related to the purchase of a part, sub-assembly, assembly, or product.
However, a thorough TCO includes much more than the purchase price of the goods paid to the supplier. For the purchase of manufactured goods, it should also include all of the other factors associated with the purchase of the goods, such as:
geographical location
transportation alternatives
inventory costs and control
quality control
as well as reserve capacity, responsiveness, and technological depth of the vendor.
Mr. Moser’s TCO spreadsheet includes calculations for the hidden costs of doing business offshore, such as Intellectual Property theft, danger of counterfeit parts, the risk factors of political instability, natural disasters, riots, strikes, technological depth and reserve capacity of suppliers, and currency fluctuation as well as effect on innovation, product liability risk, annual wage inflation, and currency appreciation.
Previous studies have shown that about 60% of companies made the decision to offshore based on comparing wage rates, FOB prices or landed costs, while ignoring the hidden costs and risk factors.
Thanks to the Reshoring Initiative’s TCO worksheet, companies are becoming familiar with the broad range of factors they had previously ignored. The reasons that thousands of other companies have given for reshoring in the Reshoring Initiatives library of cases helps companies to determine whether those reasons are applicable to them.
According to the annual report released on December 7, 2020 by the Reshoring Initiative,
“The projected job announcements for 2020 is 110,000, which will bring the total to over 1 million by year’s end…The combined reshoring and foreign direct investment (FDI) announcements in 2019 totaled more than 117,000 manufacturing jobs, plus an additional 24,800 in revisions to the years 2010 through 2018…Additionally, the number of companies reporting new reshoring and FDI was at the second highest annual level in history: 1,100 companies.”
Jobs Announced, Reshoring and FDI, Cumulative 2010-2019
The report states:
“Only products that have been offshored/imported can be reshored. Thus, the products least suitable for offshoring never left, such as heavy, high volume minerals, high mix/low volume items or customized automation systems.
The most active reshoring is by those that left and probably should not have done so, including machinery, transportation equipment and appliances. As the data indicates, reshoring is focused on products whose size and weight, e.g., transportation equipment, or frequency of design change/volatility of demand, e.g., some apparel, suggest that offshoring never offered great total cost savings.”
The term “FDI” means “Foreign Direct Investment” and refers to foreign companies that are investing in manufacturing plants in the U.S. to produce products closer to their major market of the U.S. Plants established by Japanese companies such as Toyota and Nissan, and plants established by German-owned BMW are examples of foreign investment.
However, we still have a long way to go as the report states:
“When measured by our trade deficit of about $500 billion/year, there are still three to four million U.S. manufacturing jobs offshore at current levels of U.S. productivity, representing a huge potential for U.S. economic growth.”
The report states, “Companies have consistently reported Positive Factors more often than Negative, probably because the companies place more value on demonstrating the wisdom of their current reshoring decision than on what went wrong with their earlier offshoring decision. “
The top ten positive factors that influenced a reshoring decision are:
Proximity to customers/market
Government Incentives
Eco-system synergies/Supply chin optimization
Skilled workforce availability/training
Image/brand
Infrastructure
Impact on domestic economy
Lead time/time to market
Automation Technology
Customer responsiveness improvement
The top ten negative factors influencing the decision to reshore are:
The top industries that are reshoring or benefitting from FDI are:
Transportation Equipment
Computer & Electronic Products
Electrical Equ8ipment, Appliances & Components
Chemicals
Plastic & Rubber Products
Wood & Paper Products
Apparel & Textiles
Fabricated Metal Products
Machinery
It’s not surprising that China ranks number one as the country from which companies are reshoring, with Mexico, Canada, India, and Japan filling out the top five. The top countries that are investing in manufacturing sites in the U.S. are: Germany, China, Japan, Canada, and Korea.
The authors note that “The South and Midwest continue to dominate cumulatively. The Midwest and Texas dominate reshoring and the South dominates FDI.” It was surprising to me that Michigan and New York were in the top five states for the number of jobs that were reshored, as they are not states where the cost of business is low. However, Texas ranked highest for both number of jobs announced and the highest number of companies reshoring.
The report authors state, “We believe the continued strength of the trends thru the end of 2019 is largely based on greater U.S. competitiveness due to corporate tax and regulatory cuts and increased recognition of the total cost of offshoring.”
It was interesting to note the impact of the COVID Pandemic on reshoring. The authors report: “The COVID Pandemic has increased in interest in reshoring as “Two in three (69%) manufacturing companies are looking into bringing production to North America (compared to 54% in February).”
In addition,
“Repeated surveys show that more companies, driven by the virus crisis, have decided to reshore. We expect to see the data respond to this shift in 2021. Also due to the pandemic, we are seeing U.S. reshoring outpacing FDI for the first time since 2014…The national demand to shorten and close supply chain gaps for essential products to make the U.S. less vulnerable is most likely to benefit the following industries: PPE, medical, tech, and defense. Already, 60% of cases after March mention the pandemic as a factor in reshoring decisions. Medical equipment and PPE are the first responders of new reshoring with cases already double from last year.”
In conclusion, the authors state: “The revised rate of reshoring plus FDI job announcements in 2019 was up about 2000% from 2010. The 600,000+ jobs brought back represent about 5% of U.S. manufacturing employment. The acceleration of jobs coming back combined with the decline in the rate of offshoring has resulted in a plateauing of the goods trade deficit at about $800 billion/year. The COVID crisis has revealed the U.S.’s over-dependence on imports.
This data should motivate companies to further reevaluate their sourcing and siting decisions by considering all of the cost, risk and strategic impacts flowing from those decisions. Policy makers can use the continued reshoring successes as proof that it is feasible to bring millions of jobs back.”
Government policies do have an influence on reshoring and FDI. If the next administration reverses the corporate tax and regulatory cuts, it could have an adverse effect on the reshoring trend.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/Americans-wind-manufacturing-Nordex-USA-manufacturing-facility-Jonesboro-Arkansas.jpg8001200Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-12-22 10:08:462020-12-22 10:08:52Reshoring of Manufacturing Increases in 2020
China was granted Most Favored Nation status through presidential proclamation on an annual basis from 1980 – 1998. This was because the Trade Act of 1974 stated that “MFN status may not be conferred on a country with a nonmarket economy if that country maintains restrictive emigration policies” China was, and still is, a nonmarket economy and restricted emigration, but the Act allowed the president to “waive this prohibition on an annual basis if he certifies that granting MFN status would promote freedom of emigration in that country.”
According to CRS Report 98-603 for Congress, “China’s Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) Status: Congressional Consideration, 1989-1998:” After the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, there was enough opposition to granting MFN status to China that the “House passed joint resolutions disapproving MFN for China in both 1991 and 1992,” but the Senate didn’t pass the joint resolution. However, the real focus of the debate was not whether to deny MFN status for China altogether, but whether or not to “place new human rights conditions on China’s MFN eligibility.” Congress passed legislation in 1991 and 1992 that would have placed further conditions on China’s MFN status, but President Bush vetoed the legislation.
In 1993, President Clinton announced he would link China’s MFN status to human rights progress beginning in 1994. However, President Clinton reneged on his campaign promise and reversed himself: “On June 2, 1995, President Clinton transmitted to Congress his intention to waive the emigration prohibition and extend MFN status to the People’s Republic of China for an additional year, beginning July 3, 1995.”
An L.A. Times article of May 27, 1994, reported: “President Clinton, abandoning a central foreign policy principle of his Administration, announced Thursday that he has decided to “de-link” China’s privileged trading status from its human rights record. While acknowledging that China “continues to commit very serious human rights abuses,” Clinton said that he has come to believe that broader American strategic interests justify the policy reversal.”
The annual granting of MFN status to China by a presidential waiver continued through 1998. Note that “On July 22, 1998, legislation was enacted which replaced the term “most-favored-nation” in certain U.S. statutes with the term “normal trade relations.” This made it easier for Congress to make the fateful decision to extend “permanent normal trade relations,” or PNTR, to China when the Senate voted to give China permanent most-favored-nation status on September 19, 2000. This vote paved the way for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization.
As Reihan Salam, President of the Manhattan Institute wrote in an article titled
“Normalizing Trade Relations With China Was a Mistake,” in the June 8, 2018 issue of The Atlantic, “PNTR was a euphemism designed to get around the fact that the traditional term for “normal trade relations” was “most-favored-nation” (MFN) tariff status…MFN status meant imports would be treated as favorably as those arriving from “the most favored nation.” Absurd as it might sound, this linguistic convention had meaningful political consequences. To argue that we ought to have normal trade relations with China was one thing. Sure, why not? To make the case that China ought to be treated as our most favored nation was a more vexing PR challenge, not least in the wake of the brutal crackdown that followed the Tienanmen Square protests in 1989.”
An article in the American Economic Review, “The Surprisingly Swift Decline of US Manufacturing Employment,” byJustin R. Pierce and Peter K. Schott, July 7, 2016, states:
“The permanence of PNTR status made an enormous difference: Without PNTR, there was always a danger that China’s favorable access to the U.S. market would be revoked, which in turn deterred U.S. firms from increasing their reliance on Chinese suppliers. With PNTR in hand, the floodgates of investment were opened, and U.S. multinationals worked hand-in-glove with Beijing to create new China-centric supply chains.” https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20131578
This change in U.S. trade policy that eliminated potential tariff increases on Chinese imports resulted in industries that were more vulnerable to the change experiencing greater employment loss, increased imports from China, and higher entry into the U.S. market by U.S. importers and foreign-owned Chinese exporters. My three books and the hundreds of articles I’ve written since 2009 have described what has happened to U.S. manufacturing since 2001. Besides the loss of 5.8 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of an estimated 67,000 American manufacturers, American manufacturing shifted toward more high-tech, less labor-intensive production. However, as China upgraded their technology in the past few years, we started losing our high-tech manufacturing also.
“Multiple media and NGOs estimated the government detained at least 800,000 and up to possibly more than 2 million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other Muslim groups, mostly Chinese citizens, in specially built or converted detention facilities in Xinjiang and subjected them to forced disappearance, torture, physical abuse, and prolonged detention without trial because of their religion and ethnicity since April 2017. There were reports of deaths among detainees. Authorities maintained extensive and invasive security and surveillance, in part to gain information regarding individuals’ religious adherence and practices.”
Therefore, it gave me great pleasure when I read that on September 17, 2020, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) introduced a bill (S.4609) that “would strip China of its permanent most-favored-nation status—also known as Permanent Normal Trade Relations—a designation it has held for the last twenty years. If passed, the legislation would make extending most-favored-nation status to China an annual decision for Congress and the president.”
Cotton said, “Twenty years ago this week, the Senate gave a gift to the Chinese Communist Party by granting it permanent most-favored-nation status. That disastrous decision made the Party richer, but cost millions of American jobs. It’s time to protect American workers and take back our leverage over Beijing by withdrawing China’s permanent trade status.”
“The China Trade Relations Act would revoke China’s permanent most-favored-nation status and return to the pre-2001 status quo, whereby China’s MFN status must be renewed each year by presidential decision. Congress could override the president’s extension of MFN by passing a joint resolution of disapproval.
The bill also would expand the list of human-rights and trade abuses under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that would disqualify China for MFN status, absent a presidential waiver. The abuses that would make China ineligible for MFN status, absent a presidential waiver, are as follows:
Uses or provides for the use of slave labor;
Operates ‘vocational training and education centers’ or other concentration camps where people are held against their will;
Performs or otherwise orders forced abortion or sterilization procedures;
Harvests the organs of prisoners without their consent;
Hinders the free exercise of religion;
Intimidates or harasses nationals of the People’s Republic of China living outside the People’s Republic of China; or
Engages in systematic economic espionage against the United States, including theft of the intellectual property of United States persons”
China’s strategic goal is to dominate the sectors of economic growth that historically have held the key to world power: transportation energy, information, and manufacturing. Their “Made in China 2025” plan is designed to dominate key technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, and 5G. They also plan to become the dominant power in space by 2049.
If this bill isn’t passed in the Lame Duck session, I strongly urge that it be reintroduced into the next Congress and passed unanimously next year. It’s time China for us to stop treating China as a friend and recognize China as the enemy to our national sovereignty it is.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/American-neighborhood-1.jpg8001200Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-12-03 08:38:422020-12-03 08:38:49It’s Time to End China’s Most Favored Nation Status
Over the past ten years that I have been writing blog articles, one of my reoccurring themes has been the danger posed to the U.S. by China because of their predatory mercantilism through product dumping, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and government subsidies. More recently, I have written about China’s written plan to become the superpower of the 21st Century through a combination of economic coercion, industrial espionage, and the buildup of their military.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/made-in-america-made-in-china-quality.jpg7351400Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-11-20 08:41:392020-11-20 08:41:44U.S. Must Face up to the China Threat
In the past several years, I have visited four makerspaces in southern California, and I recently decided to see how the COVID pandemic had affected these facilities. Makerspaces play a role in reviving the entrepreneurial “maker spirit” necessary to rebuild and grow American manufacturing.
For those of us who support the Made in America/Buy American movement and want to rebuild American manufacturing by returning manufacturing to America through reshoring from China, it’s important to consider the policies of President Trump and former V.P. Biden in their bid to be president.
Two policies, tax rates and the cost and availability of energy, have a major effect on where a company chooses to locate their manufacturing or headquarters, if they have multiple plants globally. If the corporation has a plant in a country with a lower tax rate, they may choose to shift their profits to the subsidiary in that country. Bulgaria and the Czech Republic at 10% and Ireland at 12.5% have the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe. American manufacturers that don’t have plants in other countries face the brunt of the tax burden. Personal tax rates are also important as only 30-35% of manufacturers are C corporations; the others are LLCs, partnerships or sole proprietorships where taxes are passed through to the owner(s).
The U.S. had a corporate tax rate ranging from a low of 15% to a high of 35% until the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was passed by Congress on December 20, 2017, which reduced the corporate tax rate to flat tax of 21%. TCJA also cut capital gains tax to 15 percent and increased the estate tax basic exemption amount from $5 million to $10 million.
President Trump’s tax policy platform for re-election focuses largely on promoting and preserving the tax cuts of TCJA and making various tax rate reductions scheduled to expire in 2025 permanent. Before the Republican convention, his campaign released his agenda, which included:
Cutting taxes “to boost take-home pay and keep jobs in America”
Enacting “Made in America” tax credits
Expanding opportunity zones
Enacting new tax credits “for companies that bring back jobs from China
Permitting 100% expensing “for essential industries like pharmaceuticals and robotics that bring their manufacturing back to the United States.”
Energy
Biden’s Energy Policies:
Biden’s campaign website.states that he plans to “Move ambitiously to generate clean, American-made electricity to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. This will enable us to meet the existential threat of climate change while creating millions of jobs…”
His plan is for America to achieve a 100% clean energy target by means of:
advanced nuclear reactors, that are smaller, safer, and more efficient at half the construction cost of today’s reactors;
refrigeration and air conditioning using refrigerants with no global warming potential;
using renewables to produce carbon-free hydrogen at a lower cost than hydrogen from shale gas through innovation in technologies like next generation electrolyzers;
decarbonizing industrial heat needed to make steel, concrete, and chemicals and reimagining carbon-neutral construction materials
leveraging research in soil management, plant biologies, and agricultural techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the ground; and
capturing carbon dioxide through direct air capture systems and retrofits to existing industrial and power plant exhausts, followed by permanently sequestering it deep underground or using it to make alternative products like cement.”
Trump’s Energy Policies:
Since he took office, President Trump has rolled back hundreds of environmental protections, including limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and vehicles, and protections for federal waterways across the country, fulfilling a campaign promise from 2016.
On June 1, 2017, Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, saying the deal disadvantaged the US “to the exclusive benefit of other countries.”
His administration approved oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which has been off-limits for drilling for decades.
President Trump supports development of all forms of energy without subsidies, including product of natural gas through fracking
Trade/Tariffs
Biden’s Trade/Tariffs Policies
Take aggressive trade enforcement actionsagainst China or any other country seeking to undercut American manufacturing through unfair practices, including currency manipulation, anti-competitive dumping, state-owned company abuses, or unfair subsidies.
Rally our allies in a coordinated effort to pressure the Chinese government and other trade abusers to follow the rules and hold them to account when they do not.
Confront foreign efforts to steal American intellectual property.
Address state-sponsored cyber espionage against American companies.
Apply a carbon adjustment fee against countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations to make sure that they are forced to internalize the environmental costs they’re now imposing on the rest of the world.
Trump’s Trade/Tariffs Policies:
On January 23, 2017, Trump signed an order to withdraw from further negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On September 2, 2017, Trump instructed aides to withdraw from the U.S. trade agreement with South Korea and later renegotiated a better trade agreement.
On August 16, 2017, the Trump administration began renegotiating NAFTA with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA was replaced with the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), signed on November 30, 2018.
On January 22, 2018, Trump imposed tariffs and quotas on imported solar panels and washing machines.
On March 1, 2018, he announced a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminum.
On April 3, 2018, Trump announced 25% tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imported electronics, aerospace, and machinery.
On April 6, 2018, Trump announced tariffs on $100 billion more of Chinese imports.
On October 7, 2019 the United States and Japan signed two agreements intended to liberalize bilateral trade. The U.S.- Japan Trade Agreement (USJTA) provides for limited tariff reductions and quota expansions to improve market access.
On January 15, 2020, President Trump and Vice Premier Liu H of China the US–China Phase One trade deal in Washington DC.
Make a $400 billion Procurement Investment in American products, materials, and services and ensure that they are shipped on U.S.-flagged cargo carriers.
Retool and Revitalize American Manufacturers, with a particular focus on smaller manufacturers and those owned by women and people of color, through specific incentives, additional resources, and new financing tools.
Make a New $300 Billion Investment in Research and Development (R&D) and Breakthrough Technologies
Bring Back Critical Supply Chains to America so we aren’t dependent on China or any other country for the production of critical goods in a crisis.
Tighten domestic content rules to require more legitimate American content
Crack down on waivers to Buy American requirements by federal Agencies
End false advertising by companies that label products as Made in America even if they’re coming from China or elsewhere
Strengthen and enforce Buy America provisions
Update international trade rules and associated domestic regulations for Buy American
Trump’s Buy American/Made in America Policies:
Trump’s campaign slogan revolves around continuing his promise to Make America Great Again. One of the ways is to rebuild American manufacturing and create higher paying jobs. He uses protectionism to defend U.S. industries from foreign competition. According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the U.S. manufacturing sector, added about 450,000 workers during the first three years of Trump’s presidency before the pandemic. Here are some of the actions he has taken as President.
Launched “opportunity zones” program in 8,766 distressed areas, which, so far, have attracted $75 billion in private capital.
Cut regulations for businesses
Issued the following Executive Orders strengthening different aspects of the Buy American Act of 1933:
Reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing and bring back 1 Million Manufacturing Jobs from China
No Federal Contracts for Companies who Outsource to China
Grant tax credits to companies that move manufacturing back to United States; tariffs on those that don’t.
Remember that actions speak louder than words, so be sure to compare what a candidate has done and not just what they promise to do in their campaign platform. Be sure to vote. The future of our country is at stake.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Washington-Monument-at-Night-Uhlir.jpg8881800Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-10-20 09:34:582020-10-21 06:55:29Comparing Trump’s and Biden’s Policies that Support Rebuilding American
In July 2017, the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) released a paper titled, “The Threat of U.S. Dollar Overvaluation: How to Calculate True Exchange Rate Misalignment & How to Fix It” by Michael Stumo (CEO), Jeff Ferry (Research Director) and Dr. John R. Hansen, a 30-year veteran of the World Bank and Advisory Board member.
The purpose of the paper is to explain the problem of the dollar overvaluation, to show how to accurately calculate the dollar’s misalignment against trading partner currencies, and to propose a solution this serious threat to America’s future. At the time, the dollar was overvalued by 25.5% compared to other major currencies.
The solution developed by Dr. Hansen is a Market Access Charge (MAC) “as a system to discourage overseas private investors and return-sensitive official investors such as sovereign wealth fund managers from excessive speculation and trading in U.S. dollar assets.” He believed that the MAC would reduce “the incentive for foreigners to invest in dollars, gradually and safely reduce its overvaluation, benefiting the U.S. economy and restoring control over our own currency.”
In February 2019, CPA released the working paper, “Quantifying Economic Growth and Job Creation from a competitive Dollar,” showing that a 27 percent realignment in the trade weighted US dollar exchange rate over five years would eliminate the US trade deficit, result in an additional $1 trillion in GDP and create 5.2 million new jobs.
The MAC was proposed in a Senate bill introduced in July 2019, S.2357, titled the “Competitive Dollar for Jobs and Prosperity Act.” It was introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), and is languishing in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
On October 5, 2020, CPA released a working paper, “Modeling the Effect of the Market Access Charge on Exchange Rates, Interest Rates and the US Economy,”by Steven L Byers, PhD. and Jeff Ferry.
In Section 1, The Relationship Between International Capital Flows and the Exchange Rate, the authors state that
“The standard open-economy macroeconomic models predict that under a floating exchange rate regime, when a country runs a trade deficit/surplus, the exchange rate will adjust to eliminate the imbalance. However, exchange rates have not adjusted and imbalances have persisted. The US trade and current account deficits have continued to run at some 2%-3% of US GDP for decades (Figure 1), suggesting that other forces are preventing the deficits from correcting themselves.”
The authors go into detailed economic models that establish the relationship between equity inflows and the currency dollar exchange rate.
In Section 2, The MAC, Capital Flows and the Dollar Exchange Rate, the authors examined how a charge on capital inflows is likely to impact inflows and the exchange rate, focusing on the Market Access Charge (MAC) discussed above. The authors state:
“The MAC would be a one-time fee paid on the purchase of any U.S. dollar financial asset by a foreign entity or individual. The MAC is designed to moderate foreign demand for dollar assets and realign the US dollar exchange rate to a trade-balancing level. The Baldwin-Hawley bill specifies that the Federal Reserve Board would set and manage the MAC to achieve current account balance within a five-year time horizon. Once balance was achieved, the Fed would manage the MAC to keep the US economy close to current account balance over time. “The Baldwin-Hawley bill specifies that the Federal Reserve Board would set and manage the MAC to achieve current account balance within a five-year time horizon. Once balance was achieved, the Fed would manage the MAC to keep the US economy close to current account balance over time.”
This section covers detailed economic models on how the MAC would affect different kinds of equity flows, such as bonds, Treasury notes
In Section 3, How the MAC Impacts Interest Rates, the authors “sought to estimate the impact of the MAC on the financial sector with a focus upon interest rates and government debt service costs.” They investigated and modeled the effect of a 1%, 3%, and 5% MAC on the nominal exchange rate, 10-year interest rates, and interest rate on outstanding Federal debt.
With regard to revenue the MAC would generate for the US Treasury, the authors comment,
“Though the MAC would reduce capital inflows significantly, our model suggests that even with a 5% MAC, gross equity inflows would continue at a rate in excess of $3 trillion a quarter, with inflows into debt securities at similar levels. MAC transaction fees, paid by foreign purchasers of US securities, would provide a large new source of revenue to the US Treasury. Table 4 shows that these revenues could reach $672 billion, equivalent to 19% of last year’s total federal tax revenue.”
In Section 4, Effects on the Economy, the authors state:
“…US producers of goods and services would gain market share in the US market and export markets. Our model estimates the impact of increased domestic production over the five-year period on US GDP and employment. In the case of a 5% MAC, the dollar’s exchange value would fall by 27…the more competitive dollar would balance trade, increasing exports by $765 billion or 29.5% over the baseline, and reducing imports by $167 billion (5.1%). The fall in imports is modest because while imports lose share in the domestic market, the rise in economic growth from the more competitive exchange rate boosts GDP, which leads to higher imports. But trade would be balanced. The GDP would rise by $1.01 trillion or 4.6%. Compared to the baseline forecast, the economy would create 4.9 million new jobs by 2025… the new jobs would be weighted towards internationally competitive sectors, notably manufacturing and natural resources, which offer higher pay (and often better benefit packages) than the average US job.”
The authors conclude that “The model shows large benefits to the US economy and the US Treasury. Further study is warranted and should be pursued.”
I would go one step further and say that the Baldwin-Hawley “Competitive Dollar for Jobs and Prosperity Act.” (S. 2357) should be released out of committee as soon as possible to be debated and then passed in the full session of the Senate. Reducing our trade deficit, increasing our GDP, and creating more higher-paying manufacturing jobs are important actions to be taken to create prosperity in America.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/American-neighborhood-1.jpg8001200Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-10-07 09:00:302020-10-07 09:00:35Market Access Charge Would Eliminate Trade Deficit & Increase GDP
One of the consequences of President Clinton’s granting China Most Favored Nation status and allowing them to become a member of the World Trade Organization is that China took over production of consumer goods previously made in the USA. As a result, the consumer products you buy that are “Made in China” may be made by slave labor.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/made-in-america-made-in-china-quality.jpg7351400Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-09-25 09:01:102020-09-25 09:01:16Buying Made in China May Support Slave Labor
How much the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic has had on manufacturing depends on the state in which a manufacturer is located and what is the industry of the manufacturer.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/American-neighborhood-5.jpg8001200Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-09-14 17:58:222020-09-23 08:07:58How has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected U.S. Manufacturing
Our modern world runs on computers and the software that controls them. Software makes our computers usable for such activities as word processing, accounting, engineering design, production planning, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), communication, CGI, 3D printing, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing, not to mention the thousands of Apps for iPhones and Android phones. Software controls many functions of automobiles, trains, boats, ships, and airplanes. If software fails, it can mean the loss of life. This is why is just as important for software to be Made in USA as it is for manufactured goods.
It is also important for software to be developed in the USA so we can make sure that there is no embedded malware, spyware, or backdoors.
https://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/video-conference-where-is-software-made.jpg8001200Michele Nash-Hoffhttps://www.themadeinamericamovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Made-in-America-Movement-Logo_340x156.pngMichele Nash-Hoff2020-09-02 08:48:062020-09-02 08:48:11Why Software Should be Made in USA
Biden Administration Must Maintain Tariffs on Chinese Goods
by Michele Nash-HoffDuring his campaign, Biden laid out his economic agenda for the country, called “Build Back Better, which includes a $700 billion investment in procurement and research and development for new technologies such as biotech, clean energy and artificial intelligence.” The goal is that “the new plan will help create 5 million new jobs.” As Vice President under President Obama, Biden advocated engagement with China, but changed his tune during the campaign, “calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “thug. ” While he repeatedly criticized “Trump’s trade and tariff war with China as being ineffective and failing to protect the US economy,” the Biden Administration must maintain the steel and aluminum tariffs order to have any hope of achieving his goal.
During his Jan. 19th confirmation hearing, Biden’s incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
An article in The Balance reported that the U.S. trade deficit with China was $315.1 billion in 2012, rose to $367.3 billion by 2015 before dropping to $346.8 billion the next year. By 2018, it had increased to $418.9 billion, before falling to $345.2 billion in 2019.”
The big drop was partly due to the 25% tariff on steel imports that President Trump enacted on top of a 10% tariff previously leveraged on aluminum. The tariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018, impacting $34 billion worth of Chinese imports.
The article reported that “The U.S. trade deficit with China for 2020 was $283.6 billion as of November of that year. That’s 18% less than 2019‘s $345.2 billion deficit.”
The article explained that
In the same vein, Reuters reported that the U. S. trade deficit narrowed in 2019 for the first time in six years, stating “At the height of the U.S.-China trade war last year, Washington slapped tariffs on billions worth of Chinese goods, including consumer products, thumping imports. The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China plunged 17.6% to $345.6 billion in 2019 “
On November 17, 2020, IndustryWeek published an opinion article by Jeff Ferry, chief economist at the Coalition for a Prosperous America. Ferry wrote “it’s clear that the Trump administration’s steel tariffs have generated a boom in steel investment and a shift to newer technologies that are creating high-paying jobs for thousands of new steelworkers…The steel tariffs have succeeded by reducing the level of these imports in the U.S. This has allowed domestic steel producers to make needed investments while taking the industry forward with confidence.” He cited that “U.S. Steel Corporation produced the first ton of steel at a brand-new facility in Fairfield, Alabama, “Nucor Steel has started building a new steel plate mill in Brandenburg, Kentucky, that will employ 400 workers at an average annual salary of $72,800,” and “Commercial Metals Company announced plans to build a second rebar steel mill in Mesa, Arizona, that will employ 185 workers.”
He noted that “With steel imports down, America’s steelmakers have started investing at home. In addition to Nucor and US Steel, companies like Cleveland-Cliffs, Steel Dynamics, CMC, and AK Steel have invested billions of dollars in at least 16 major new projects throughout the nation. The top five US steel companies more than doubled their total annual investments between 2017 to 2019, from $1.5 billion to $4.2 billion.”
It’s been great that the 25% tariffs on steel have saved our critical American steel industry, but the tariffs have not been high enough to benefit most of the manufacturers in the parts producing domestic supply chain.
As a sales representative for American manufacturers that produce molded and other fabricated mechanical parts, we sometimes get feedback on quotes we lose showing that we would need tariffs of between 200 – 300% to be able to compete with Chinese prices, especially for molded rubber and plastic parts. Sometimes, the finished part price is less than or equal to the prices for the material used to make these parts. Our industry would love for tariffs to be higher and across the board on all products produced in China and imported to the U.S.
As I wrote in my last article of 2020, tariffs have helped manufacturers return to the U.S. through reshoring. We gained business in 2019 and 2020 from companies returning metal fabrication from China to the U.S.
In an article on January 22, 2021, “Biden’s Team Could Be as Hawkish on China as Trump’s, Kenneth Rapoza, CPA Industry Analyst, wrote:
I urge the Biden Administration to keep up the momentum on reducing our trade deficit with China and increasing higher-paying manufacturing jobs by maintaining or expanding tariffs on Chinese imported goods.
To appease his “Green Deal” followers, he could call the tariffs “Greenhouse Gas Emission fees” because China’s manufacturers depend on polluting coal-fired power plants due to lack of environmental regulations like we have in the U.S. Many American power plants use cleaner-burning natural gas. The welfare of our economy and our national security depend on using every tactic we have available to thwart China’s goal of becoming the world’s superpower of the 21st Century.
Reshoring of Manufacturing Increases in 2020
by Michele Nash-HoffReshoring of Manufacturing Increases in 2020
The United States gradually lost manufacturing jobs from the peak of 19.5 million in 1979 to 17.3 million by early 2000. However, after China was granted Most Favored Nation status that year, the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. accelerated dramatically as American manufacturers moved manufacturing offshore and cheaper Chinese goods drove U.S. manufacturers out of business.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs from the middle of the year 2000 to the middle of 2010. Fortunately, we have been slowly regaining manufacturing jobs since 2010 thanks to a great extent to the efforts of the Reshoring Initiative.
In April 2010, the Reshoring Initiative was founded by Harry Moser, retired president of GF AgieCharmilles LLC, a leading machine tool supplier in Lincolnshire, Illinois, to facilitate returning manufacturing to America from offshore by providing the right tool at the right time to with the creation of the Total Cost of Ownership™ worksheet calculator spreadsheet. To help companies make better sourcing decisions, the Reshoring Initiative provides the Total Cost of Ownership™ spreadsheet for free to help manufacturers calculate the real impact offshoring has on their bottom line. The website provides an online library of more than 7,000 articles about cases of successful reshoring.
The brief definition of TCO is an estimate of the direct and indirect costs related to the purchase of a part, sub-assembly, assembly, or product.
However, a thorough TCO includes much more than the purchase price of the goods paid to the supplier. For the purchase of manufactured goods, it should also include all of the other factors associated with the purchase of the goods, such as:
Mr. Moser’s TCO spreadsheet includes calculations for the hidden costs of doing business offshore, such as Intellectual Property theft, danger of counterfeit parts, the risk factors of political instability, natural disasters, riots, strikes, technological depth and reserve capacity of suppliers, and currency fluctuation as well as effect on innovation, product liability risk, annual wage inflation, and currency appreciation.
Previous studies have shown that about 60% of companies made the decision to offshore based on comparing wage rates, FOB prices or landed costs, while ignoring the hidden costs and risk factors.
Thanks to the Reshoring Initiative’s TCO worksheet, companies are becoming familiar with the broad range of factors they had previously ignored. The reasons that thousands of other companies have given for reshoring in the Reshoring Initiatives library of cases helps companies to determine whether those reasons are applicable to them.
According to the annual report released on December 7, 2020 by the Reshoring Initiative,
The report states:
The term “FDI” means “Foreign Direct Investment” and refers to foreign companies that are investing in manufacturing plants in the U.S. to produce products closer to their major market of the U.S. Plants established by Japanese companies such as Toyota and Nissan, and plants established by German-owned BMW are examples of foreign investment.
However, we still have a long way to go as the report states:
The report states, “Companies have consistently reported Positive Factors more often than Negative, probably because the companies place more value on demonstrating the wisdom of their current reshoring decision than on what went wrong with their earlier offshoring decision. “
The top ten positive factors that influenced a reshoring decision are:
The top ten negative factors influencing the decision to reshore are:
The top industries that are reshoring or benefitting from FDI are:
It’s not surprising that China ranks number one as the country from which companies are reshoring, with Mexico, Canada, India, and Japan filling out the top five. The top countries that are investing in manufacturing sites in the U.S. are: Germany, China, Japan, Canada, and Korea.
The authors note that “The South and Midwest continue to dominate cumulatively. The Midwest and Texas dominate reshoring and the South dominates FDI.” It was surprising to me that Michigan and New York were in the top five states for the number of jobs that were reshored, as they are not states where the cost of business is low. However, Texas ranked highest for both number of jobs announced and the highest number of companies reshoring.
The report authors state, “We believe the continued strength of the trends thru the end of 2019 is largely based on greater U.S. competitiveness due to corporate tax and regulatory cuts and increased recognition of the total cost of offshoring.”
It was interesting to note the impact of the COVID Pandemic on reshoring. The authors report: “The COVID Pandemic has increased in interest in reshoring as “Two in three (69%) manufacturing companies are looking into bringing production to North America (compared to 54% in February).”
In addition,
In conclusion, the authors state: “The revised rate of reshoring plus FDI job announcements in 2019 was up about 2000% from 2010. The 600,000+ jobs brought back represent about 5% of U.S. manufacturing employment. The acceleration of jobs coming back combined with the decline in the rate of offshoring has resulted in a plateauing of the goods trade deficit at about $800 billion/year. The COVID crisis has revealed the U.S.’s over-dependence on imports.
This data should motivate companies to further reevaluate their sourcing and siting decisions by considering all of the cost, risk and strategic impacts flowing from those decisions. Policy makers can use the continued reshoring successes as proof that it is feasible to bring millions of jobs back.”
Government policies do have an influence on reshoring and FDI. If the next administration reverses the corporate tax and regulatory cuts, it could have an adverse effect on the reshoring trend.
It’s Time to End China’s Most Favored Nation Status
by Michele Nash-HoffChina was granted Most Favored Nation status through presidential proclamation on an annual basis from 1980 – 1998. This was because the Trade Act of 1974 stated that “MFN status may not be conferred on a country with a nonmarket economy if that country maintains restrictive emigration policies” China was, and still is, a nonmarket economy and restricted emigration, but the Act allowed the president to “waive this prohibition on an annual basis if he certifies that granting MFN status would promote freedom of emigration in that country.”
According to CRS Report 98-603 for Congress, “China’s Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) Status: Congressional Consideration, 1989-1998:” After the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, there was enough opposition to granting MFN status to China that the “House passed joint resolutions disapproving MFN for China in both 1991 and 1992,” but the Senate didn’t pass the joint resolution. However, the real focus of the debate was not whether to deny MFN status for China altogether, but whether or not to “place new human rights conditions on China’s MFN eligibility.” Congress passed legislation in 1991 and 1992 that would have placed further conditions on China’s MFN status, but President Bush vetoed the legislation.
In 1993, President Clinton announced he would link China’s MFN status to human rights progress beginning in 1994. However, President Clinton reneged on his campaign promise and reversed himself: “On June 2, 1995, President Clinton transmitted to Congress his intention to waive the emigration prohibition and extend MFN status to the People’s Republic of China for an additional year, beginning July 3, 1995.”
An L.A. Times article of May 27, 1994, reported: “President Clinton, abandoning a central foreign policy principle of his Administration, announced Thursday that he has decided to “de-link” China’s privileged trading status from its human rights record. While acknowledging that China “continues to commit very serious human rights abuses,” Clinton said that he has come to believe that broader American strategic interests justify the policy reversal.”
The annual granting of MFN status to China by a presidential waiver continued through 1998. Note that “On July 22, 1998, legislation was enacted which replaced the term “most-favored-nation” in certain U.S. statutes with the term “normal trade relations.” This made it easier for Congress to make the fateful decision to extend “permanent normal trade relations,” or PNTR, to China when the Senate voted to give China permanent most-favored-nation status on September 19, 2000. This vote paved the way for China’s accession to the World Trade Organization.
As Reihan Salam, President of the Manhattan Institute wrote in an article titled
An article in the American Economic Review, “The Surprisingly Swift Decline of US Manufacturing Employment,” by Justin R. Pierce and Peter K. Schott, July 7, 2016, states:
This change in U.S. trade policy that eliminated potential tariff increases on Chinese imports resulted in industries that were more vulnerable to the change experiencing greater employment loss, increased imports from China, and higher entry into the U.S. market by U.S. importers and foreign-owned Chinese exporters. My three books and the hundreds of articles I’ve written since 2009 have described what has happened to U.S. manufacturing since 2001. Besides the loss of 5.8 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of an estimated 67,000 American manufacturers, American manufacturing shifted toward more high-tech, less labor-intensive production. However, as China upgraded their technology in the past few years, we started losing our high-tech manufacturing also.
In addition to the annual reports to Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission documenting China’s violation of World Trade Organization rules along with human rights violations, the U.S. Department of State submits an annual report on International Religious Freedom in accordance with the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. According to the 2018 International Religious Freedom Report :
Therefore, it gave me great pleasure when I read that on September 17, 2020, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) introduced a bill (S.4609) that “would strip China of its permanent most-favored-nation status—also known as Permanent Normal Trade Relations—a designation it has held for the last twenty years. If passed, the legislation would make extending most-favored-nation status to China an annual decision for Congress and the president.”
Cotton said, “Twenty years ago this week, the Senate gave a gift to the Chinese Communist Party by granting it permanent most-favored-nation status. That disastrous decision made the Party richer, but cost millions of American jobs. It’s time to protect American workers and take back our leverage over Beijing by withdrawing China’s permanent trade status.”
Senator Cotton’s press release states:
The bill also would expand the list of human-rights and trade abuses under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that would disqualify China for MFN status, absent a presidential waiver. The abuses that would make China ineligible for MFN status, absent a presidential waiver, are as follows:
China’s strategic goal is to dominate the sectors of economic growth that historically have held the key to world power: transportation energy, information, and manufacturing. Their “Made in China 2025” plan is designed to dominate key technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, and 5G. They also plan to become the dominant power in space by 2049.
If this bill isn’t passed in the Lame Duck session, I strongly urge that it be reintroduced into the next Congress and passed unanimously next year. It’s time China for us to stop treating China as a friend and recognize China as the enemy to our national sovereignty it is.
U.S. Must Face up to the China Threat
by Michele Nash-HoffOver the past ten years that I have been writing blog articles, one of my reoccurring themes has been the danger posed to the U.S. by China because of their predatory mercantilism through product dumping, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and government subsidies. More recently, I have written about China’s written plan to become the superpower of the 21st Century through a combination of economic coercion, industrial espionage, and the buildup of their military.
Read moreHow has the COVID Pandemic Affected Maker Spaces
by Michele Nash-HoffHow has the COVID Pandemic Affected Makerspaces?
In the past several years, I have visited four makerspaces in southern California, and I recently decided to see how the COVID pandemic had affected these facilities. Makerspaces play a role in reviving the entrepreneurial “maker spirit” necessary to rebuild and grow American manufacturing.
Read moreComparing Trump’s and Biden’s Policies that Support Rebuilding American
by Michele Nash-HoffFor those of us who support the Made in America/Buy American movement and want to rebuild American manufacturing by returning manufacturing to America through reshoring from China, it’s important to consider the policies of President Trump and former V.P. Biden in their bid to be president.
Two policies, tax rates and the cost and availability of energy, have a major effect on where a company chooses to locate their manufacturing or headquarters, if they have multiple plants globally. If the corporation has a plant in a country with a lower tax rate, they may choose to shift their profits to the subsidiary in that country. Bulgaria and the Czech Republic at 10% and Ireland at 12.5% have the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe. American manufacturers that don’t have plants in other countries face the brunt of the tax burden. Personal tax rates are also important as only 30-35% of manufacturers are C corporations; the others are LLCs, partnerships or sole proprietorships where taxes are passed through to the owner(s).
Taxes
Biden’s Tax Policies:
Trump’s Tax Policies:
President Trump’s tax policy platform for re-election focuses largely on promoting and preserving the tax cuts of TCJA and making various tax rate reductions scheduled to expire in 2025 permanent. Before the Republican convention, his campaign released his agenda, which included:
Energy
Biden’s Energy Policies:
Biden’s campaign website.states that he plans to “Move ambitiously to generate clean, American-made electricity to achieve a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035. This will enable us to meet the existential threat of climate change while creating millions of jobs…”
His plan is for America to achieve a 100% clean energy target by means of:
Trump’s Energy Policies:
Trade/Tariffs
Biden’s Trade/Tariffs Policies
Trump’s Trade/Tariffs Policies:
Buy American/Made in America
Biden’s Buy American/Made in America Policies:
Trump’s Buy American/Made in America Policies:
Trump’s campaign slogan revolves around continuing his promise to Make America Great Again. One of the ways is to rebuild American manufacturing and create higher paying jobs. He uses protectionism to defend U.S. industries from foreign competition. According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the U.S. manufacturing sector, added about 450,000 workers during the first three years of Trump’s presidency before the pandemic. Here are some of the actions he has taken as President.
President Trump’s campaign website also lists the following goals for his next term:
Remember that actions speak louder than words, so be sure to compare what a candidate has done and not just what they promise to do in their campaign platform. Be sure to vote. The future of our country is at stake.
Market Access Charge Would Eliminate Trade Deficit & Increase GDP
by Michele Nash-HoffIn July 2017, the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) released a paper titled, “The Threat of U.S. Dollar Overvaluation: How to Calculate True Exchange Rate Misalignment & How to Fix It” by Michael Stumo (CEO), Jeff Ferry (Research Director) and Dr. John R. Hansen, a 30-year veteran of the World Bank and Advisory Board member.
The purpose of the paper is to explain the problem of the dollar overvaluation, to show how to accurately calculate the dollar’s misalignment against trading partner currencies, and to propose a solution this serious threat to America’s future. At the time, the dollar was overvalued by 25.5% compared to other major currencies.
The solution developed by Dr. Hansen is a Market Access Charge (MAC) “as a system to discourage overseas private investors and return-sensitive official investors such as sovereign wealth fund managers from excessive speculation and trading in U.S. dollar assets.” He believed that the MAC would reduce “the incentive for foreigners to invest in dollars, gradually and safely reduce its overvaluation, benefiting the U.S. economy and restoring control over our own currency.”
In February 2019, CPA released the working paper, “Quantifying Economic Growth and Job Creation from a competitive Dollar,” showing that a 27 percent realignment in the trade weighted US dollar exchange rate over five years would eliminate the US trade deficit, result in an additional $1 trillion in GDP and create 5.2 million new jobs.
The MAC was proposed in a Senate bill introduced in July 2019, S.2357, titled the “Competitive Dollar for Jobs and Prosperity Act.” It was introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), and is languishing in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
On October 5, 2020, CPA released a working paper, “Modeling the Effect of the Market Access Charge on Exchange Rates, Interest Rates and the US Economy,” by Steven L Byers, PhD. and Jeff Ferry.
In Section 1, The Relationship Between International Capital Flows and the Exchange Rate, the authors state that
The authors go into detailed economic models that establish the relationship between equity inflows and the currency dollar exchange rate.
In Section 2, The MAC, Capital Flows and the Dollar Exchange Rate, the authors examined how a charge on capital inflows is likely to impact inflows and the exchange rate, focusing on the Market Access Charge (MAC) discussed above. The authors state:
This section covers detailed economic models on how the MAC would affect different kinds of equity flows, such as bonds, Treasury notes
In Section 3, How the MAC Impacts Interest Rates, the authors “sought to estimate the impact of the MAC on the financial sector with a focus upon interest rates and government debt service costs.” They investigated and modeled the effect of a 1%, 3%, and 5% MAC on the nominal exchange rate, 10-year interest rates, and interest rate on outstanding Federal debt.
With regard to revenue the MAC would generate for the US Treasury, the authors comment,
In Section 4, Effects on the Economy, the authors state:
The authors conclude that “The model shows large benefits to the US economy and the US Treasury. Further study is warranted and should be pursued.”
I would go one step further and say that the Baldwin-Hawley “Competitive Dollar for Jobs and Prosperity Act.” (S. 2357) should be released out of committee as soon as possible to be debated and then passed in the full session of the Senate. Reducing our trade deficit, increasing our GDP, and creating more higher-paying manufacturing jobs are important actions to be taken to create prosperity in America.
Buying Made in China May Support Slave Labor
by Michele Nash-HoffOne of the consequences of President Clinton’s granting China Most Favored Nation status and allowing them to become a member of the World Trade Organization is that China took over production of consumer goods previously made in the USA. As a result, the consumer products you buy that are “Made in China” may be made by slave labor.
Read moreHow has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected U.S. Manufacturing
by Michele Nash-HoffHow much the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic has had on manufacturing depends on the state in which a manufacturer is located and what is the industry of the manufacturer.
Read moreWhy Software Should be Made in USA
by Michele Nash-HoffWhy Software Should be Made in USA
Our modern world runs on computers and the software that controls them. Software makes our computers usable for such activities as word processing, accounting, engineering design, production planning, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), communication, CGI, 3D printing, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing, not to mention the thousands of Apps for iPhones and Android phones. Software controls many functions of automobiles, trains, boats, ships, and airplanes. If software fails, it can mean the loss of life. This is why is just as important for software to be Made in USA as it is for manufactured goods.
It is also important for software to be developed in the USA so we can make sure that there is no embedded malware, spyware, or backdoors.
Read more