Today’s announcement that several hundred Northshore Mining workers are to be laid off is terrible news–especially as we approach the holidays. Our first thoughts are with the families and businesses affected in the Babbitt and Silver Bay areas. They’re going to need help to get through this– and we will be in contact with the Administration this morning to assure that Trade Adjustment Assistance and every means of help available will be forthcoming without delay.
That said, the United States has proven time and again that it is incapable of effectively enforcing trade laws and agreements to protect American workers. We need to once and for all get to the heart of why these layoffs continue to happen across Minnesota’s Iron Range and throughout the iron ore and steel industries: bad trade agreements and a broken trade enforcement system that continue to permit the illegal dumping of millions of tons of low-grade, foreign government-subsidized steel by China and other Southeast Asian nations into the U.S. market.
And once we negotiate a trade agreement, we are stuck with the broken enforcement system that comes with it; a system riddled with loopholes; a system that takes too long; a system that allows horrific economic damage to occur before even modest remedial steps can be taken.
It’s time for this to stop, and it’s time for the American government to stand up for American workers. If there was ever any doubt that the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is a job killer that should be defeated–today’s announcement should put those doubts permanently to rest. Beyond defeating the TPP, we need to go back and reexamine every single trade agreement– beginning with the NAFTA debacle that has cost us millions of jobs and contributed to the loss of some 57,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities.
U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan
Washington, D.C.
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