republican congresswoman nancy mace. watch "washington journal" live at seven eastern wednesday morning on c-span or on c-span our new mobile app. during the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments text and tweets. live video coverage of the biggest political events from live streams of the house and senate floor and key congressional hearings. the white house events in supreme court oral arguments, even our live interactive morning program "washington journal" we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. ♪ ♪ correct conversation on u.s. manufacturing now with scott paul he is president of the alliance for american manufacturing. having this conversation on the day were expecting to hear from president biden on this

issue. but before we get to those remarks, reminded viewers what the alliance is, what your mission is, how you came about. >> jon, thank you. it's very good to be with you and your listeners today. the lights for american manufacturing isnu a nonprofit partnership between the united steelworkers unit which is america's largest industrial union and some leading u.s. manufacturers with whom they have a collective bargaining arrangement had refounded 2007 manufacturing jobs were plummeting at the time. we saw the rise of competition from china and the idea was if you work together, business and labor, you have a stronger voice and can make impactful policyho change. >> urged the white house daily guidance to the present expected to deliver remarks on rebuilding american manufacturing at 1:45 p.m. eastern project anymore insight into what he's going to say?

on the timing for these remarks? >> thank you. oti do not know precisely what the president will say. i do think that from their past comments, from their policy direction it is very clear that this administration wants to ensure that the american people know and understand that there is a strategy in place to rebuilt american manufacturing. and it could not come at a better' time. we have seen the types of shortages, supply chain disruptions, that have been brought about not only from the pandemic but also from national disasters, potential political risks, we have seen some of the capabilities in the united states as well. there is i think this newfound understanding of the value of american manufacturing. even in this era of globalization of automation,

how having production capabilities on our shores from everything from semi conductors to pharmaceuticals is going to be vital not only for job creation in the united states these are good middle-classla jobs but also from an economic and national security perspective as well. i will just say it's not just the magical invisible hand that allocates manufacturing jobs around the world. a lot of it has to do with policy. and for a long time the united states was reluctant to engage in an aggressive industrial strategy. i think mines have shifted in the democratic party the republican party and so now you see president biden and you see the congress pulling and pushing some policy levers beyond taxes and regulation into things like investment into research, grant, other incentives, workforce

envelopment, trade enforcement and procurement to accelerate this type of reassuring that we need to see. >> and implemented that aggressive policy, how important t is the america competes act to the subject of a lot of floor time last week in the house and eventual passage. >> absolutely. the american competes act which was passed by the house of representative and similar legislation not identical but similar passed by the senate last summer it would aim to do a couple of things. number one, it would aim to address a semi conductor shortage crisis. the united states, just a couple decades ago made one out of every threeev semi conductor strips in the united states. down to 11% -- 10% today. the idea of america competes is that these factories are expensive to build. they take a long time to get up and running.

and they involve a lot of research and development. and so from a public sector perspective of providing some incentive, providing some matching resources for companies to locate their l production here is going to pay dividends to the economy down the road. there's $52 billion specifically for semi conductor manufacturing in here. there's a variety of other incentives related to ensuring manufacturing or some trade enforcement in the legislation as well. it should be a down payment within the last word on industrial strategy. we know our competitors in europe, asia and other parts of the world are busy at work nalso figuring out how they can bolster their own manufacturing base for. >> republicans argue on the house for last week this bill is not tough enough i on china.

provisions including some climate provisions in this legislation actually .sundermined the us when it comes to competing against china. what are your thoughts on those arguments? >> i think unfortunately there is a political tinge to a lot of that, jon. i do think the legislation came out of the senate have bipartisan support. again the house legislation is not identical. but if you look at some of the provisions in it, there is specifically to bolster the competition with china. they provide us with trade enforcement tools that make it much tougher for trading partners like china to cheat. and so i do not know they are going to get a version of a competitive's bill that specifically aligns with some version of eight trump presidency. but i do think on balance this represents a step in the right direction. and you see a number of interest groups and the chamber of commerce comment to

the national association of manufacturers who traditionally align more with the republican side, come out in full support of the legislation. my hope is that we can come together because it is going to take bipartisan collaboration to make america competitive and also to fundamentally address the challenges we see from other countries like china for. >> provision of the competes act when the house version expand trade adjustment assistance. explain what that is. >> trade adjustment assistance is a program where if you were working in manufacturing or a nether industry in the united statesyo and your job is been displaced either by import competition or by shifts of production abroad to factory it moved overseas, you are entitled to receive some sort of government assistance to help you get back on your feet. because the data particularly over the last four or five

decades of this show the workers who lose their jobs in a factory tend to end up in occupations that have far worse pay, far worsese benefits. they have poor social outcomes. and many of them will not find another job at all. and so having a program that will provide for appropriate workforce training to provide for some level of a social is going to be valuable for the trade adjustment assistance program we have in place is a bare-bones and not adequate to meet those needs. particularly when we are facing, all of us arere facing situations where we are more dependent than ever on having flexible work schedules or access to transportation, or daycare. and so an overhaul of assistance is something that has been needed in the united states for decades so that our workers who do lose their jobs

due to some change in trade, are not left on the sidelines for. >> or talk with scott about president of the alliance for american manufacturing. talking about an issue president biden is going to be talking about later this afternoon.ta 1:45 p.m. eastern us when we are expecting remarks from the president pretty want to talk about american manufacturing as a great time to call in republicans (202)748-8001 per democrats (202)748-8000, independence (202)748-8002. if you work in manufacturing setting aside our last line for you this morning, (202)748-8003. that is that neverer going to start calling and scott paul with us until 8:45 a.m. eastern. we have them for about another half hour this morning. as folks are calling in, mr. paul when china joined the wto the result was supposed to be more markets to sell u.s.

products and perhaps a more liberal china due to the influence of the free market and due to the influence of western culture. i wonder, did that happen since china has joined? >> no it did not. i was involved with this debate d when is taking place the late '90s and 2000. i've a poster of site that says no blank check from china that was more or less the provisions under which they were admitted to the wto and this idea was built on trust philosophy that this would take place. it clearly hasn't. china's more authoritarian, et cetera cracking down human rights system more democratic. it is no more open to the world in terms of fair trading regimeme. it has certainly benefited from its membership in the wto. and big global companies want

to source and look for very low costt labor and communities in which they can exploit the environment have done very well to this as well. but who has suffered? workers have suffered for the environment has suffered. chinese people who disagreed with the government are certainly no better off than they were. you sought manufacturing get absolutely decimated in the united states throughout that first decade is there is a surge of chinese imports that came ine and washed away 40 or 50000 american manufacturing establishments. nearly one third of all manufacturing jobs and left communities absolutely devastated. some still have notd. recovered. and so for too long unfortunately the united states trusted this philosophy or trusted in dialogue up until the trump presidency.

and then the course hasou changed. i think it has permanently changed now. you may see iterations of a different china strategy. i think the united states understands that we can collaborate when possible. but we must actively challenge these unfair economic practices that are doing harm to the rest of the world and to protect our own interests that way. quickly step aside and bring in some cause change in central florida line for democrats. you are f up first with scott paul of the alliance for american manufacturing. >> yes. actuallye an there are several things i want to talk about. thee main is getting the manufacturing in chinese and bring it back to the united hestates. i know quite a few years ago fruit of the loom manufactured in north carolina underwear and then they shifted to china.

and of course the savings and that money because the ceo touted that. what is the possibility to motivate these companies, the united states companies to bring back the manufacturing back here. we have good working people and work it from there. mr. paul? >> thank you for the question it is an excellent one. we have seen this type of factory closures moving overseas for decades in the united states. and it gradually i think james makes a good point here, cap moved from highly labor intensive work like underwear garments, up to semi conductors in a very sophisticated equipment now. into thisy relate note sector immune from this. so how do we get it back? i do not pretend like we're going to recapture all of

manufacturing. i do not think it's beneficial to erect walls around the united states either literally or figuratively. i think global trade can be good. but iti do think we can increase our own market share and revitalize some domestic production. part of that takes intent on the part of the business community for if entrepreneurs, give business owners, if you have shareholders who want to that intense, who want companies to make something in the united states they can generally find a way to do that. part of that has to do with public policy which is what were talking about with the american competes act. if we have the right incentives to onshore work and we also have some punitive mechanisms that make it more difficult to simply make workers disposable and ship those jobs overseas we will see better outcomes as well. we also need other majors to make sure our economy is competitive. i think that is with the infrastructure legislation was

about. or investing workforcein training so we can compete in a variety of different types of areas where you need to be successful in manufacturing. and we have seen some results. i would say intel some other semiconductor manufacturers have announcedso they're bringing some work back to the united states. ford, gm, some of their partners are locating electric battery facilities in the united states. and so you're starting to see large-scale manufacturing make decisions to locate production in the united states where it has been decades it has really been decades s since that was the case. i do believe that is possible to make some progress although we are never going to go back to a situation was on the 1960s and 50s we had virtually no competition at all. and we took everything for granted for that'ss not going to be the case either as we

move ahead too. >> to de soto, kansas this is diane republican good morning. >> good morning. first of all i think this is a great thing. but i want to talk specifically about pharmaceutical active ingredients. i specifically remember donald trump took on this challenge when he was president and talked about bringing this manufacturing to puerto rico. i seem to recall he was working with kodak to build this facility. i have some experience with pharmaceutical manufacturing in a previous position. it is a very to manufacture active ingredients as opposed to the finished product which is much easier to do. i would like to know, do you have an update on that? do you know anything about

what president trump had done and any actions taken by anybody to move manufacturing of the active ingredient to the united states? >> is that something you can speak to? >> absolutely. it is a very good question. i will say we, at the alliance for american manufacturing were raising alarm bells around this more than a decade ago we were dangerously exposed too and overdependence on sole sources for some active pharmaceutical ingredients. particularly in china and india. at there is ever a supply chain crunch for some reason it would leave us vulnerable to shortages of necessary medicines. there were some steps taken in the trump administration through procurement and other mechanisms to pursue collaborations for

pharmaceutical companies to locate some production either in the united states or in puerto rico where there tends to be pharmaceutical ecosystem as well. we see some progress there were the biggest bears we have seen this low-cost sourcing from china and india it is expensive to reestablish that in the united states. that is something worthom investing in we don't want to see ourselves in a situation of scarcity for critical medicine at a time of great need. i know there's a supply chain

and they have made some recommendations this will take the cooperation of the industry as well. >> how can that u.s. compete with the cheap products from china. u.s. consumers have a 999 toilet falls apart in a few months the u.s. manufacturers cannot make the same toy for less than 1995 because of regulations and wages. >> yes it is a good question. consumers i think are very accustomed to finding almost whatever they need online or at a big box retailer for a very cheap price. the problem is the total cost of that good is not reflected in the purchase price by the consumer. as the color pointed out the tweeter pointed out there may be quality issues. you may not get what you pay for.

but we have also seen and there have been some consultants who have looked at this, well over 90% of goods bike could be competitively produced in the united states. and again,, that does not mean everything. but we could certainly see more produced in the united states at a very profitable rate. again, why the challenges that we face is corporate and financial behavior. and working against the notion even if you have a profitable factory in the united states is making products you can make evenat more money that should be moved to a country likeli china which certainly was a herd mentality we've seen over the last couple of decades. and raising c the cost of moving that production abroad iio think has to be part of a strategy if we are to reassure some yomanufacturing in the united

states and pray this not a particularly simple answer to this other than we need to encourage the business community to havee fresh eyes and to take a look at how they can make their next fantastic idea and the united states pray because for too long it was not even considered to be an option for. >> the individual on twitter mentioned cheap chinese labor there's also the issue of free and forced chinese labor but i wonder if you can explain with the weaker forced labor prevention act is? do we know how big of an issue this is for american companies having within their supply chain some parts and products that were made using forced labor? >> yes jon it's a very good question. we could spend a long time talking about but i'll try to dissect it very succinctly. the uighurs are ethnic population in the western part of china who have faced

discrimination for-- decades. this is not anything new. but what is new are the active measures the chinese government the chinese communist party has taken to enact with the united states and other western nations as well. it is a genocide through imprisonment, through forced labor, through sterilization and through other sorts of mechanisms to eviscerate this culture. and the problem is, for us in addition to be a humanitarian one is that there could be potentially an awful lot of products that are sourced from this forced labor in some way, shape, form. cotton is produced and that reason. poly silicon first solar panels lots of different parts going to complex machines. and the problem for western companies is that we have virtually no visibility into

the region of china. outside observers who were independent are not really allowed into these areas to inspect exactly what is going on. and so there has to be a think a presumption that any part, any product coming from that part of china could include forced labor. in the united states law there has been a band against the import of products made with child forced labor for a longg time. thee weaker forced labor prevention act was overwhelming bipartisan support in the congress. it was signed by president biden, would make clear that what of the consequences are for companies that are not abiding by these long-standing commitments that they were supposed to have been making through u.s. law just through

a moral and ethical guidance as well. >> tom in harrisburg, pennsylvania independent good morning your next. yes, independent because we democrats used to be a terrified party. that is the answer but here in pennsylvania all inspector republican along with democratic union members for years bipartisan fought china and tried to impose the china tariffs. and then t the radical left hijacked the democratic party. and now for some reason we are against the tariffs. the tariffs worked. the tariffs worked they were bipartisan and since trump i guess kim he did not come up with the idea he did not come up with that the democrats did but he broughtht it back. >> host: mr. paul? >> guest: thank you we could talk the history of terrorists for a long time it's a lot of great books that a been written about it.

the originalta proponents of the chairs were george washington and alexander hamilton who don't really have a political partyhi today. but they've been a part of american governance for a long time through lincoln up to and including the post world war ii. or they have been used of less of a policy. i also want to take a bit of an issue with johnson characterization of the democratic party. i think it is true that national democrats like the presidential candidacy democrats have had for a long time have been reluctant to utilize trade policy tariffs. i think that is true of carter, and of clinton, and of obama. that was true of republicans as well of bush, both bushes, reagan ett cetera. the change we sought did happen with the election of donald trump. there are tariffs in place up to 25% on some imports coming from china right now.

now, joe biden has not taken sethose tariffs off. in fact, understands we have a lot of work to do to ensure our trade relationships with china is a fair one. but to john's point, i think this is very important. we need the leadership of both parties to understand that tariffs can be one tool in the toolbox. i do think the way in which trump approach this left us a open to criticism and may have been overly broad. and so having a strategic focus on the tariffs in addition to engaging our allies to also come with pressure on china can be an effective approach as well. but as i said in the outset, i do think our approach to china as a nation has been

unalterably changed. and we are not going to go back to this helpful strategy that we had in the early 2000 that china would eventually get there. i think it's clear from present that's not their intention. and we have to act accordingly to protect their own economic interest movingct ahead. splenda is about 50 meds left a scott paul for the alliance for american manufacturing for their website american manufacturing.org if one check themac out online we do have a separate line set aside for those who work in manufacturing (202)748-8003 per donna's on that line out of the buckeye state. kind of work do you do? >> okay, i worked in heavy equipment manufacturing. i do not want to say specifically. let's say it runs on the rear attracts and leave it at that. i want to see manufacturing come back to the united states

desperately. i know when i go shopping i am tired of seeing the china label on everything i want to buy. i would prefer to buy american but it is not offered, it is not made here. i think that years ago we had this model where we did not think we needed manufacturing anymore to have good jobs. we told everybody in america is where things are invented and created an ideas come from. so let's ship the manufacturing offshore work can be made cheaper but we will continue to do the design and innovation. what we found out there was, most of the foreign countries no the engineering is important we call now the stem. and so we ended up with foreign nationals coming to our universities to learn those types of things. and it priced her own u.s. citizens right out of the college campus.

and so we kind of loss not only do we lose manufacturing, we lost onshore innovation, creation like that. so, with that being said there is certainly a huge market for skilled hands, carpenters, plumbers, auto mechanics, we have a huge market here with good paying jobss that do not require college degrees or at least require low tech adult education night school degrees or two-year associate degrees. we do not all have to be masters and doctors to make big money. the other thing, i think we need to somehow reimagine how u.s. manufacturing works. my department, i ended up with a foreign national boss who ended up in smaller portions

of what we made, it was all sense offshore. it was a thoroughly american company who is having all of their products. we designed them here but they were -- china was given preferential treatment to actually manufacture all the parts that went into our final product. so in a way we were sort of hijacked their. china was given preferential treatment as our manufacture what wee referred to in industry as a contract manufacturer. so that tilted the playing field right there in china'sfa favor. >> don thank you for the call. you raise a number of really important critical points. in fact thank you for your work. one of the things and you articulated this i'm going to take that a reframe in a different way.

i think too many in washington do not understand is in value of manufacturing for that's partly because the ruling class, we all have bachelors and masters in professional degrees but most of america does not. most of america does not have a bachelors degree. and the importance of manufacturing of skilled work that may not require a bachelors degree i think is underrepresented in policy, and washington d.c. and so i go back to saying our policy, our government policies have intent to want to make thingsnt here and as well as designing it here. there isde a value added for najobs, for our economy, for national security and for innovation we found through a lot of business studies as well as that co- location is very important as well. and the other thing than that we needds is this change in

business mindset. i sell the business roundtable a couple of years ago say wege are going to get back to be called stakeholder capitalism which is not only caring about your profitt margins and your return to investors, but also caring more about your workers, your customers, the communities in which are operating. and so far it is lip service. if it weren't you would see more investment in the united states. we have seen some company step up i do want to say that even in ohio you have seen intel make a massive new investments in ohio and i am old enough to remember when we were lectured that we would never see big manufacturing come back to the united states again. and so for someone like me who has worked in this it is good to see that. but it takes that intent and it takes the public sector and the private sector working together to make that happen. >> and patty at a reidsville wisconsin good morninggo go ahead. >> yes, yes.

we are a small community now about 33000 but were bustling we are probably 35 -- 36. that being we manufactured trains, ships aluminum manufacturing and now they've all been decimated and we are left with empty sites and massive million dollar worth of cleanup. our rivers are polluted i'mga sure we have contributed our pollution to lake michigan. but what can we do? yes it is easy to point out other countries but we have our own here we have migrant workers, and so on and so forth. so what should be the incentive of someone starting up a manufacturing plant here and keeping it here? thankin you. >> thank you great question. gives gives me a chance to

point out wisconsin is by some measures that leading manufacturing state still in theel united states that has a very large percentage of its population still working in manufacturing even though we have seen some those plant closures that patty mentioned. so, starting up a manufacturing business is expensive. just think about this for a second period when you are designing an app, you can coaching your laptop, you need someone who knows coding pretty may need a sophisticated marketing person that is literally it when you're starting it up. when you try to launch a manufacturing enterprise you need a facility. you need machinery, you need engineering in a production experience you need workers. you need to find markets. it is much more capital-intensive. and so having some mechanism through grants, through, loans, through tax incentives is very

important to help erase some of the start up cost disadvantage that you see and to drive d entrepreneurs to think about hardware in addition to software and manufacturing that in the united states. now there are some states that do this there are some that do it while some that don't do it well. we've seen some massive failures as well. we have to be careful how we do this pretty think we have to understand is going to plate dividends that middle-class jobs will be spending money in stores help make your community wealthy or as a matter fact. and so we need to do that. that takes place at the state level the federal level american competes act is again one example of how we can begin to design a strategy like that that can be smart and successful. >> we just saw the generate

jobs numbers come out. the manufacturing sector in the area of 12.6 jobs. i wonder though we talk about the devastation of manufacturing jobs in this country especially in recent years. take us back to months between february of 2020 and april of 2020 and what that was like in that manufacturing sectors. just by the number some bureau of labor's digest six it was almost 12.8 million manufacturing jobs in this country in february 2020 and april is down to just 11.4 million manufacturing jobs per. >> yes. the olympics are on wasn't ueven ski jump it was straight down. one of the reasons for that is in manufacturing virtually every manufacturing job has to be done in person and you're doing it with other people. and so until manufacturers

were able to figure out a way to safely return to production, all of that disappeared and then there is just the economic shock as well. and so i think one of the benefits that manufacturers have is they have to be particular attentive to health, safety and collaborate with the workforce to make sure that is possible. there is moving machinery. and you also need sometimes sterile facility. so understanding that i think gave a lot of manufacturers and edge as they came back online. and then much of what we needed during the pandemic were manufactured products ass well. andac so i think some factory owners were able to better than others in terms of keeping the workforce safe. but think manufacturing was able to ramp up. we are at a point we have almost captured all those job losses again. i think about 250,000 or so short of that.

and jon, that is important for one reason which is in every prior economic downturn that we have seen since the 1970s, we have never regained all the manufacturing jobs that we lost with us through the great recession, that was true in the tech bubble and the downturns in the late '80s. i think this one stands a very good chance of us being able to not only fully recover those jobs, but to increase it fromo there. that is in part because of thisis rediscovery that we need to have more capabilities in the united states were growing our economy. >> host: a couple more phone calls with scott paul the alliance for american manufacturing. we will head out to the alcornhusker state this is craig and nebraska, good morning. >> good morning, thank you so much for taking my call. just a quick comment we should not be surprised dealing with china it is in a moral country

run by a moral people but my actual comment centers around a small company just an example here, were small companies were started by families, many of them. they were started many years ago 40s, 50s. and in nebraska here we had a company called peterson manufacturing breed they made a very familiar tool called the vice grip. very successful. but then a large conglomerate namelyff irwin tools came in and offered this family 200 -- $300 million. quite a bit of incentive for a small company in a family company to sell out at that point. they kept jobs there for a couple of years but within a few years the factory was closed. all the jobs were shiftft over too china if you buy that vice grip it's now made in china. so my question is how can we get through it may be some type of ftc review and get to

the owners of these companies these families rather than just selling out to a conglomerate some type of function if you will to better help these family companies transition their company that they started into a u.s. manufacturing jobs? thanks so much. >> thank you, that is an excellent example. it exposes some of thedi differences between family-owned manufacturing which is really the bedrock of manufacturing the vast majority of manufacturing's small size enterprises that are family-owned. versusus the larger multinational companies that may be shareholder directed. i do think there needs to be some safeguards put into place for this should be a national security review. whether offshore production is going to harm u.s. readiness

in some way. i think it makes sense seven economic review. and i think particularly with respect to the communist party of china there needs to be some investment restrictions that are established. there is a mechanism in the american competes a bill by the representatives that would do that for the first time. and so on top of that, the notion of stakeholder capitalism among these publicly traded companies needs to be more. if wegu need a wall street regulation to do that, we can do that. orre if we need more pressure on businesses to do that. we need to do that as well. and i will just say and i want to be very clear about this, my criticism of china is directed at its leaders at the chinese communist party. i think the chinese people do not bear any ill will towards the united states.

and i do think there's unfortunately an awful lot of xenophobia that takes place and some harm to asian americans as a result of that. and i think it is important to separate the policy differences from any sort of other things that mayay be said about chinahe and to make that very clear. but at the same time we should not hold back our criticism of the chinese communist party and its practices. and in any way be muted or censored from doing that. >> one last call will go to the land of enchantment this is chuck, goodin morning. >> good morning. i had an observation and a question associated with that myopic and narrow views of our government. just for an example of how they view manufacturing throughout the country.

i would like to see with the answer is having a narrow view like the steel industry in delaware, move down to the south. and then moved overseas. where clinton closed down a get morebases to m money. i see government looking at these manufacturers as an opportunity to get money they are very shortsighted and what theyth do. i would like your opinion on how shortsighted our government is or silicon valley where they shove them overseas because they overtaxn them. they took away that research in stuff had research laboratories in silicon valley. and they turned everything

over to chip makers and they went overseas because they're overtaxed. i would like to get your opinion. >> host: will take the question were running out of time i'll give you the final minute. speech a goodmo question. again we need more intent when it comes to manufacturing to try to avert factory layoffs. to try to encourage startups to do it in a way that it's collaborative. i think part of o the problem is the balance has been skewed. we favored a philosophy over results. we favored capitals over workers, shareholders over stakeholders. and all of that is manufacturing for decades got decimated. i do think there is another way. thinkk the recent factory opening announcements represent a new dawn potentially for american manufacturing that we can build on. and so i will say, i am