I also found this interesting:
The United Steelworkers, which had protested the Chinese wind power fund as part of a larger, 5,800-page trade complaint it filed with the American government on Sept. 9, said the administration’s decision was only a first step in addressing a “vast web of protectionist policies” by Beijing.
5,800 pages? From just one union? Geez.
Here's the statement from the US Trade Representative.
Here's a strong claim (via IELPB) about the misleading way trade statistics are calculated:
A new reasearch paper calculates that because of the way trade statistics are calculated - the full value of an iPhone is considered an export to the U.S. from China by both countries, even though only about 1% of the value was created during the final assembly process in China - just the iPhone alone added almost $2 billion to America's trade deficit with China in 2009. The authors find that if a "value-added approach" was used to calculate trade statistics, the iPhone would have instead generated a $48 million trade surplus for the U.S. in 2009, instead of the $1.9 billion trade deficit reported using the conventional methodology. ...
[I]f trade statistics were adjusted to reflect the actual value contributed to a product by different countries, the size of the U.S. trade deficit with China—$226.88 billion, according to U.S. figures—would be cut in half.
I wouldn't worry so much about the actual numbers, and instead focus on the fact that the trade statistics, like many other common statistics, do not always do a good job of measuring what they are supposed to measure.
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