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Republicans and Democrats, he said, both fail to recognize that global competition is no longer between companies. Rather, U.S. companies compete against countries that align their trade policies to capture markets.
"The United States faces the lack of a national and international trading strategy, or economic policy ... we as a nation don't have an entity that competes with other nations, and I think this harkens back to a reluctance to get into national economic policy or strategies because of the concern that it has the taint of some kind of government control and government assistance," he said.
The free-trade debate gets bogged down in political labels, which O'Shaughnessy thinks misses the broader point.
"So you have got 'socialists' fighting the 'capitalists,' and neither side realizes the mercantilists are kicking their ass. Both of them, it doesn't matter whether you are on this side or that side, if you are dealing with a mercantilist society, and that's what we're fighting in China," he said.
Mercantilism was practiced by the great European powers centuries ago, and involved protecting domestic industry while trying to dominate global trade to secure wealth and power. Critics of U.S. policy toward China, and before that policy toward Japan, argue that the U.S. should take steps to favor its own industries more.
As lawmakers squabble over how to create jobs and what to do about China's undervalued currency, Rome is burning.
Rome, New York, that is.
Here, a legendary copper rolling mill's fight for survival underscores what's at stake in the battle over China policy and a free-trade philosophy that's been championed by both political parties.
A weathered copper bell made by the famed midnight rider Paul Revere sits in front of the offices of Revere Copper Products Inc., a company whose origins date back to 1801. Paul Revere supplied the copper sheets used to protect the USS Constitution.
Today, Revere employs about 350 workers, who for three shifts a day in a cavernous plant make architectural copper products and huge rolls of copper that are purchased by other manufacturers for a wide range of electrical and industrial uses.
Chairman Brian O'Shaughnessy bought the company in a leveraged buyout in 1989, and at the time it had 800 workers in two plants. Shifts in global trading patterns and soaring energy costs forced him to close a sister plant in New Bedford, Mass., in 2007. Today, he watches incredulously as lawmakers seek to threaten China with "tough" legislation that stands little chance of passage in Congress.
Meanwhile, his customers keep moving abroad, primarily to China.
"Since the year 2000, we have seen more than 30 percent of the facilities we ship product to in the United States shut down, or move offshore. Most of them initially moved to Mexico, but they have since moved to China," he said in an interview that began in front of a giant mural of Paul Revere in the town of Rome. "When that happens, we have fewer manufacturing companies to ship product to in this country, so the competition for that smaller industrial base that we ship to is pretty fierce."
http://http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2010/11/how_china_policy_squeezes_comp.html
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