Views > January 20, 2005

Ground Control to Mr. Bush

By Sen. Bernie Sanders

“There’s a trade deficit. That’s easy to resolve: People can buy more United States products if they’re worried about the trade deficit.” —George W. Bush, December 15, 2004

Reminiscent of the callous “Let them eat cake” reputedly uttered by Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, President Bush’s remarks show how out of touch he is with the economic reality most Americans face. Apparently, the president hasn’t visited a shopping mall or Wal-Mart lately. If he had, like the millions of Americans who flocked to our nation’s stores this holiday season to buy toys, bicycles, computers, sneakers, clothes, telephones, cowboy boots (yes, Mr. President, cowboy boots!), even artificial Christmas trees and decorations, he would surely know that an overwhelming majority of these products were made overseas, mostly in China.

Mr. President, did you buy an Xbox for your teenage relative this holiday season? If you tried purchasing one that was made in the United States, you’re out of luck. According to Flextronics CEO Michael Marks, “We moved all of the production of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles from Mexico to China.”

Did Mrs. Bush buy you a pair of Ariat cowboy boots for Christmas? Well, guess what, Mr. President? Every last one: made in China.

As everyone knows from your accident last summer, you are an avid bicycler. How about a sturdy mountain bike for Christmas? Oops, 85 percent of our bicycles are made in China.

As our commander in chief, you might be thinking about picking up some more rare-earth magnets for our military’s smart bombs and cruise missiles. Well, guess what? Eighty percent of those magnets are made in China.

How about an American flag? Since 9/11, more than 10 million American flags were made in China.

Levi’s Jeans? Sorry, they aren’t made in the United States anymore either. Did your staff purchase Christmas decorations for the White House this year? Approximately 80 percent of these decorations are now made in China. (By the way, did you read about the so-called Christian “dissident” who was placed under house arrest in China because he wanted to have a party with his friends to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ?)

Mr. President, you may want to do your holiday shopping next year with former General Motors CEO Jack Smith. At least, he sounds like he’s been out in the real world lately. “Walk around Wal-Mart,” Mr. Smith says, “and it looks as if everything is made in China.” And he should know about Chinese imports. After all, General Motors is laying the groundwork for moving the U.S. auto industry abroad by purchasing $4 billion in auto parts from China by 2009, up from $200 million last year.

While the stark reality of America’s industrial might moving abroad may have escaped the president and his economic advisers, a growing number of members of Congress see with their own eyes the devastating effect that the president’s trade policy is having on manufacturing jobs in their own districts. It’s high time that Congress brought the president down to earth, and made him understand that our current unfettered free trade policies have been a disaster for the working families of this country—and need a fundamental overhaul.

Today, the middle class in our country is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. This year, the United States will have a record-breaking trade deficit of almost $600 billion, including an estimated $140 billion trade deficit with China. Over the last four year we have lost 2.7 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs—more than 16 percent of that sector. Many of those jobs have gone to China, a totalitarian society where workers are paid pennies an hour and have minimal rights. Meanwhile, most of the new jobs being created here are low wage with minimal benefits.

Amazingly, while the U.S. middle class declines, corporate America is helping make China the economic superpower of the 21st century. Not only is China rapidly becoming the manufacturing center of the world, it is quickly becoming the information technology hub as well. Andy Grove, the founder of Intel, predicted last year that the United States will lose the bulk of its information technology jobs to China and India over the next decade. These are some of the best-paying jobs available.

And John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, is typical of many corporate leaders when he said: “China will become the IT center of the world, and we can have a healthy discussion about whether that’s in 2020 or 2040. What we’re trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company.”

The time for playing nice with corporate outsourcers and their enablers in government is over. Congress must repeal Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and develop trade policies that protect and create good-paying jobs in America. We must create a noise so loud that even the president hears it.

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• Reader Comments

  This is the America of the free market. This is the America based on capitalism...an ECONOMIC...not a political system. This is the America seen only in the wildest dreams of the “robber barons” of early American industry. This is the America of Reagan. Only it isn’t “Morning in America”...its twilight. This is the America of the the military-industrial complex...where job growth and business growth exist in the building of bombs, guns and other weapons of destruction. This is the Bush America of freedom...freedom of markets, freedom from regulation, freedom from the “nattering nabobs of negativism” spoken of by Agnew 35 or so years ago, hell...freedom from responsibility, freedom from accountability.

  And it is the beauty of democracy, the beauty of the American system that we have done this to ourselves. We have sown the seeds of our own destruction. We have felled the greatest nation in the world without firing a shot.

  God Bless America, indeed.

  Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Jan 20, 2005 at 12:59 PM

  Hey have you ever read any Sinclair Lewis. Surely no one alive today can believe that the earlier version of the US is better than the current one. Racism, sexism are largely fixed at least compared to 100 years ago.

  And as far as i can see, no one is being arrested for voicing their opinions (and i don’t count such groups as anti-abortion protesters - IF they violate the law about *where* they may protest, for instance). The Daily Show has not been harrassed by the Reps, freedom shines. (It is a bummer that such a close and bitter election just happened, but someone had to win and someone had to lose, unless we wanted to have “co-presidents”.)

  These are the best of times. . .

  Posted by thinkHarder on Jan 20, 2005 at 1:10 PM

  You are an ignoramus. America does not have “Free Trade”. No other country except for America is “globalizaing”. There are laws in India which make it ILLEGAL to hire Americans there. There are no guest worker visas for Americans to go work in China.

  Yet millions of their workers can come to America, take paychecks, send the money (capital) out of the country, trash the country up, then go home. And in doing so they produce nothing of value. What we are doing by allowing mass importation of “guest workers” is encouraging the rape of America.

  As for your “guns and bombs” statement, exactly what do you think Communist China is doing with all that money we are sending them? They are building up their military so that they can attack us, that’s what. Maybe when they bomb America back into the stone age, you will listen, American needs to build MORE bombs - not FEWER - as a deterrent. And if you wish to continue your irrational leftist viewpoints that are destroying America, then just consider this:

  “The capitalists of the world and their governments, in the pursuit of the conquest of the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the indicated higher reality, and thus will turn into deaf, mute, blind men. They will extend credits in giving us the materials and technology we lack. They will restore our military industry, indispensible for our future victorious attacks on our suppliers. In other words, they will labor for the preparation for their own suicide.”—Vladimir Lenin

  “War to the hilt between communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in thirty to forty years. To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie ... will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as their guard is down, we will smash them with our clenched fist.”—Dimitri Manuilski of the Lenin School for Political Warfare

  Posted by Reply to Liberal AND Proud on Jan 20, 2005 at 1:17 PM

  Both of you need to look beyond your own noses.

  First of all WE are SHIPPING our dollars overseas...in the form of the fast approaching unsupportable levels of debt and current account shortfalls this brainsurgeon has created.

  So, they don’t NEED their weapons. They will simply OWN us. And the captains of American industry will CHEER, because of the lovely equity positions they hold in those international businesses.

  America is NOT an economic system. The role of government is NOT simply managing economics. The role of ELECTED government is to ensure that the PUBLIC INTEREST is served.

  Where are the new jobs? Where are the new industries we’ve been told were going to replace the “old economy”.

  You want to base our power simply on our might. you think that that is all it takes. Gee, I didn’t know you blogged on the Internets Mr. President...how’s the inauguration going?

  You may call me an ignoramus. But you are simply blind FOOLS.

  Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Jan 20, 2005 at 1:40 PM

  “Racism, sexism are largely fixed at least compared to 100 years ago”

  Are we really measuring ourselves against racism and sexism as it existed in 1905?!  Wow, those are some lofty standards you set for us.  Hey, while we’re at it, let’s just set the bar a little lower.  150 years ago slavery was still an institution in the South.  Look at how far we’ve come!  Give me a fuckin’ break.

  “These are the best of times. . .”

  What?!  American people are dying overseas for a lie.  We have record trade and budget deficits and are bleeding jobs like they are the blood of an Iraqi security officer.  The environmental protections of the last several decades have been erased in the space of 4 years.  Our politicians are unscrupulous whores who are bought and paid for by greedy corporations.  These corporations set our policies in secret meetings at the White House after they bend Cheney and Bush over for a plunking.  Conservative “reporters” are paid by the Administration with your tax dollars to parrot the policies of the corporate johns-this makes them the whores of the whores.

  And you say these are the best of times?!  I say wake the FUCK up and thinkJustalittlebit dumbass.

  Posted by Matt Harris on Jan 20, 2005 at 2:38 PM

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