law school in manhattan and a senior attorney at columbia university's first amendment institute. watch landmark cases. and follow us at c-span. and we have resources on our website. "the landmark cases" companion book and the interact i have onstitution and the podcast at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> earlier today, the afl-cio had a discussion on u.s. steel and aluminum tariffs. they looked at the impact those tariffs could have on national security and jobs. here's that event now. >> thanks very much. we will begin. welcome to the afl-cio and thank

you for coming. i'm selles drake and i work on olicies for the afl-cio and 12 .5 members. i will be introducing the panel and the important topics we will be discussing. talking about trade policy in washington, d.c., can be extremely frustrating. pundits and commentators apply the simplistic and incorrect free trade versus proper textist dichotomy and think they have said everything on the topic. for instance, intellectual appropriate rules are a critical part of u.s. free trade agreements and trade policy but represent a clear deficient yation from so-called free trade. advocates like the afl-cio are labeled as protection nist and we support duty-free treatments

and that is a free trade position. one interesting thing about this administration and its recent actions on tariffs. it's decision to protect national security by imposing 232 tariffs on global imports on aluminum and steel and china's intellectual property theft by imposing what is known as section 301 tariffs on chinese imports and represent outside the box thinking even though they are the imposition of the most traditional trade enforcement tool ever. these inous to promote ice nationist. start of the trade war and hurt america's working families. we have heard these allegations on talk shows and read them on-line. but what's the truth. are these tariffs bad because they are imposed by this particular president, long

overdue and help create good paying jobs. those are the questions we will investigate. joining me to separate the truth from the fiction. i will introduce them briefly and then we'll get down to the discussion. first, we are joined by a respected world trade organization litigator. elizabeth is a consulting counsel is a former assistant general counsel for the united states trade representative and trade counsel for the ways and means committee of the united states house of representatives. next, on my far right, elizabeth drake is a partner in a law firm and has experience in a broad array of international trade law matters including section 301 petitions. she has represented clients in proceedings before the u.s. international trade commission and the court of international

trade and previously worked for the afl-cio. we have robert scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy at the economic policy institute. has published in academic journals and the stanford and law policy review and "los angeles times." and on my near right we are pleased to be joined by president of the united steel workers local that represents workers in worker. he started working at the plant 11 years ago making a lot of armor for soldiers in iraq and afghanistan and has seen it firsthand. we will begin with a discussion amongst the panelists and open it up for questions. anyone interested in tweeting truth today's panel use #

intrade. and let's say that we just stepped into an elevator and take us one minute to get to the floor we are going to. tell me your thoughts on the steel and aluminum tariffs. what is your one-minute answer? >> i think that the steel and aluminum tariffs are a once in a lifetime opportunity to address a critical problem that has been building up for the last two decades and that problem is massive amounts of overcapacity in steel and aluminum centered in china and russia and vietnam and korea. these tariffs are an important opportunity to build a wall, if you will, around that unfairly

traded metal that is distorting global trade and costing us tens of thousands of jobs. >> aluminum and steel are viting to our national security. national security is much broader than national defense and it includes, infrastructure, bridges, food security. these are things we need to have the in the united states and ensure that these businesses that are being driven out of business through imports are sustained for the long-term so we can sustain our national security. >> i will say it's for our national security. my plant makes the humvees and m wraps. d.o.d. is a trickle-down effect and put up one or two steel jobs. that's a fact. so it's part of our national security. part of job creation.

>> i would say these tariffs are long overdue. when china joined in 2001, everyone predicted that he would be a market economy. their steel capacity has quad drumed driven by nonmarket policies that distorts china's market and given the scope and scale of the problem. we have tried dialogue and traditional remedy tools and challenges and the problem just gets worse and worse and required a global solution for our own national security but hopefully will get the community to address this problem before it gets even worse. >> there are seems to be pretty unanimous spots on this panel that the steel and aluminum tariffs are good. but let's get into it more. e heard china cheating fee

w.t.o. and jobs having a downeffect on the steel industry. but we know that we heard that tariffs generally are bad. they are like a dirty heard and heard fear mongering about what could be the negative consequences of these tariffs. i would like to open it up to the panel, what do you think the impact of these tariffs are going to be on our economy? is it going to be a big impact or more positive or more negative and could you explain why by someone who is not familiar with the idea of tariffs but heard a lot about how essentially they are a dirty word? >> the steel tariffs could be beneficial to the domestic economy if handled right. in a way that encourages other countries around the world to

coordinate as was suggested and targeting countries like china, russia and vietnam that is distorting world markets and costing us jobs. i think we have encouraged those countries to eliminate that excess capacity. if we don't, it's not just the question of jobs at stake in the steel and aluminum industry. these metals are critical to the production of hundreds and thousands of other downstream products arranging from auto parts torl washing machines, windmills and aircraft parts. they are at risk if we allow china and russia and these other countries. but to produce this metal at subsidized prices. and that's what is at risk. >> for a regular consumer who i

deal with on a regular basis, we don't go buy out and buy steel by the ton. we don't buy it like cheese. for a consumer to say, it's going to go up, steel will go up in prices because you are getting a better made product. bringing the overcapacity is key as a trickle-down effect to create other jobs. you need to support the data that says, what is going to go up? if steel went up, that means the cost of the auto would go up. since 2008, steel has been down. it is still down and steel fluctuates up and down and car prices are the same. you are not going to get a discount price on the car. so you have to show data what is going to go up and what's not

going to go up. the regular consumer is not going out buying steel by the ton. >> you made an important point. the price that manufacturers are paying goes down, consumers don't always see that in the price of the goods. if the price of inputs go up. it depends on the market power of the particular manufacturer, the shape of the demand curve. folks don't need to know about, but they need to know because the price of an input goes up, doesn't necessarily translate into widespread inflation. >> the price of aluminum dropped between 2011 and 2016 by 30%. it was because of excess capacity and we have a situation that american producers are foreign proosers are not subject to. a lot of the discussion, people

say that american producers aren't competitive. so let's put these tariffs in context and put the places in context. the place has been deflated for many years and the tariffs are one way to get the tariffs back. >> that is exactly right. the question is, what are you buying for the additional costs? you are pay-go the tariffs and the viability of a domestic steel industry and domestic aluminum industry. if you want prices to allow produces to be sustainable and the whole level was allowing the steel industry to return to 80% capacity which is what is needed for them to be sustainable. that is the tradeoff. that is what you are buying with the additional tariffs. if you don't do that, if you aren't able to reach those levels, you are in a downward

spiral. we had tens of thousands of workers lose their jobs. e are trying to go back to sustaining economic levels. >> i want to go back to something rob when he started off the answers to that question and talking about the importance of these tariffs being promoted in a coordinated way and strategic way. you could get them right or get them wrong. if we get them wrong, it's going to be the start of a trade war. and i know president trump and trade -cio it is not a war and scare tactic to get the average american to oppose these tariffs. i would like to share from the panelists, do you think we are already in a trade war? and if so, who started it?

and who's winning and who's losing? >> i do agree that the rhetoric is overblown. this section of the law, there have been 26 investigations under this section of law the whole world didn't fall apart. there have been restraint agreements that have been reached including steel and that is what we are seeing with korea. everyone needs to calm down and take a deep breath and realize that this can be an important tool to getting to a more sustainable rational rules of the road for the steel industry and aluminum industry. soarses, ect there is china built up its industry without any demand. they have more excess capacity than our total capacity. it is irrational and the chinese

government said we are going to do something about it and their capacity went up and up and up. i don't know how you can expect you will get different results doing the same thing over and over again. >> we are at war and war on american jobs. just to think that china can produce more steel in one month than the u.s. can in one year, it's phenomenal. it's something that is unheard of. and that's an attack on american jobs. we are at war. it is a war on american jobs that are being lost. that is something we have to take care of up here with the tariffs that are being put in place. >> thanks, good point. members of the audience, we are wrestlingeep any keep of papers to a minimum. i want to go back to your

comments about national security. we have heard a little bit questioning whether the steel and aluminum tariffs are legitimately related to national security and folks saying this is just a front for protectionism. can you tell us more about why steel and particularly aluminum are related to national security and little bit of history about what a section 332 tariff is is any way. >> it was enacted by congress in 1955. we recite the statute as 1952. congress did this eight years after we signed the gap. congress was clearly aware that signing to that obligation is going to have some ramifications toll protect our national security. >> what's the gap? >> general agreement on tariffs and trade. it was a precursor to the world

trade organization that we have today. that's a little bit of the section 232. it's important to recognize that the act plays ar role in all of this and after 9/11, congress was worried we did not have a way of planning for the protection of our critical infrastructure. that was included in the patriot act which distinguishes between national security and national defense. . . the general's statement said they only need a certain percentage of aluminum and steel to meet his needs. national defense is just a subset of national security. customs and borders protection has been charged with developing the framework for critical infrastructure and for identifying the critical sectors that are elements of our critical infrastructure and they did designate aluminum and steel as critical opponents of being

critical date our infrastructure. >> thanks very much. elizabeth, on the 232 tariff, we hear they're controversial and barely used, can you talk about that a little bit? >> they are rarely used, they have been used in the past. i honestly think a lot of the controversy around these tariffs doesn't have as much to do with the rar riff -- -- tariffs uh was the atmospherics and pornltes associated with them. i think a more calm discussion that actually looked at the merits an understood the background and reasoning, there can be a lot more room for agreement that something like was needed to address the problem that has been basically unaddressable up until now and i completely agree on the importance of understanding national defense writ broadly, not just what the department of defense needs but what you need for roads, bridges,

communication, and there was a court challenge to the 232 where they said this isn't for national security, this is for economic security and the judge rightly said well, i've got limited ability to review this but 232 says economic security is part of national security. so this claim has no basis and there's plenty of findings that it is essential for national security. so it was just interesting to see the judge on the court reach the same conclusion others who have looked at it more closely. >> rob. trading seems to be a problem in -- china seems to be a problem in steel aand aluminum but you've also mentioned russia and vietnam. why are steel and aluminum tar riffers not just on those three countries why are they burdening other trading partners? >> two reasons. first if we just put tariffs on those countries it would be far too easy for china and russia

and vietnam to export their goods to other countries, such as japan, korea, or even canada, and then simply transship them, move them from those countries to the united states. we want to block off that option. but i think there's a second need and more important reason which is that we want to provide incentives for other countries to join us in circling the wagons, building a wall around the unfairly traded metal. this is the only way in which we're going to i think be able to remove that excess capacity from the world market if we make it impossible for these countries to export their unfairly priced metal to the rest of the world. this in part is because i'm very concerned about the ability of china to export its steel to korea, a third country which transformed an enormous amount

of metal into cars. korean cars are now i think the third largest source of imports of motor vehicles in the united states. much of those vehicles are made with subsidized steel from china. we're not allowed to impose duties on those cars because of their use of subsidized steel. so even though korea, in this case, agreed to a tariff on exports of steel to the u.s., a ota, korea is reducing its exports of its own steel to the u.s. by 30%, we said nothing in that agreement about korea's ability to use dumped and subsidized steel from china and other countries i've mentioned. i think the agreement is a good place to start. i don't think it's achieved what was -- what we could have achieved wit. >> that's an important point. before opening up questions to the audience, i've got more but i'd like to get some audience

participation, i want to come back and make this a little more concrete and a little less act abstract. we know that there were layoffs announced last fall before the announcement of the tariffs at your plant and can you talk about what that really does to the members of your local and one what your experience -- what you're experiencing and how maybe things are different or still the same at your plant given the recent tariff announcements. >> we are right outside of philadelphia. we were one of the main pr deucers of al-- main producers of alloy military steel. back in 2005, the height of around the war, we had around 400 to 425 i call them members, but employees at the plant. today we only have about 200. we're going to be going down to 71 in august. this is what not having tariffs

in place do. we had a bridge-yard adjacent to our plant dedicated to bridge steel. that's closed in the last two years because that industry and those orders are not there due to not having tariffs in place. so this is what happened when you don't have tariffs in place. you lose jobs, you're closing parts of your plant now. my plant, if you want to talk about national security, was one of the main producers for the military steel. fwine, we05 to around were the only plant that made any money for the company based on the military that we had coming through to the plant. we turned on a dime to actually support the military and the military vehicles in our mrap vehicle program this program was based on trying to send steel over to afghanistan to reinforce

the vehicles because the vehicles that they had were not being -- it was being destroyed things s and guns and that were going on. we lost a lot of our smaller customers due to that. those customers will be the ones that keep us afloat in slow times for steel but our dedication to the country and the military took that away. not having tariffs in place is really -- has really deindustried my plant in particular. we are the poster child of the not having tariffs in place. it really just took what we had in the plant and just took it down to basically nothing. you know, you go from 400 to 71 people and that can even get lower based on the company and their plans. facility. e us a

right now there's not another plant out there that can produce steel the way we can, the military ally we can and make it the strength we can. so it's not a lot of industries out there that can compete with our plant because this is what our bread and butter was for so many years. >> thanks for that. extremely important. >> could i add a quick note to the point that he mentioned, you just mentioned about the bridge building unit. this was a key issue raised in 232 hearings, one that i think managers of the bridge building association mentioned that one of the things that they're challenged with is bridge components that are being imported from mexico, being made out of chinese steel. dumped and subsidized steel. this is another illustration of the way these unfairly traded products are really filtering through global commerce in a way that's having a very negative

impact on a wide range of products from the u.s. >> another point i want to make, if this plant , my plant, is going down to 71 and possibly could be closing in the next year or two then where will we get the steel from? who will we rely on to give us steel for the u.s. military? i have the facts to say that, you know, we produce over 200,000 tons of steel in the last three years between the war. those are facts. that's not something i'm just throwing out. so the question is national security will be affected if we don't have this plant in particular to make the steel. because as we had -- if we have to rely on another country we may be in trouble. >> that's a great point and gets back to the point of 232 is an important section of the trade law, it's not just a front to address dumping or other things. it's actually really important

to all of us. so at this point i'd like to open it up to questions from the audience. just raise your hand if you have a question, i'll call on you. monica. >> there have been reports to suggest that some steel mills are opening up and johns -- jobs are increasing. has that not had an effect on your plant? >> not at this time. those plants are carbon plants. it's a more open market for carbon. wire rod is another market. aluminum also another market. we're in a specialty market and it's not a lot of specialty customers out there besides the biggest one is the d.o.d. so until there's some type of military spending plan and some type of other plan to bring down the cost but ultimately overcapacity has to come down. what's happening is the service that we deal with are still over capacity. that has to come down even more for us to even start trying to

think about rehiring. so there are effects but it's just not affecting us at this time. >> will. >> thank you so much. you were mentioning the coordinating strategy or coordinated process that she hopes will result in the final version of the steel and aluminum tariffs. i wanted to ask first of all, is it a coordinated process? or risk about the exemptions and exclusions that the administration and companies in other countries are talking about, how do you perceive that going on now? and also second part is, there are exemptions and exclusions, you know, then we sort of end up in a place where a lot of interests are fighting over particular steel and ilum -- aluminum products and the real

beneficiaries of those might not be mr. thompson but might be the interests in washington, law firms who are fighting over those various things. >> so on the first question, that's a good question, i think rb mentioned that, you know, ideally this results in coordinated action by all major markets to eliminate that excess capacity. so we've seen the e.u., for example, being temporarily -- has an exclusion. at the same time they announced they are starting an investigation. so that could be one element of the collusion. canadians, part of their exclusion, have developed like a canadian steel worder team or something of that nature where industry and government officials are getting together to make sure they don't become a conduit for dump or subsidized or overcapacity flowing into the u.s. in return for them getting an exclusion. so i think that is an element of what they're trying to build into these countries, sfesk

exclusions is that they also need to take some action to create some more coordinated global approach to basically squeeze out tuns for this overcapacity to disrupt other markets around the world. and on these -- on the process, it's just started, there have been something like 1,000 requests filed and only a handful of them have been released. they are very, very specific in terms of specific widths and lengths and chemical content and what have you but part of it is they do need to identify whether or not there's any domestic source and then there's an option for domestic producers or others to object to any request that's made. i think it's too early to say how that's going to shake out. i've been talking to people who were part of the process during the 201 safeguard back in 2001. and they defined those exemptions pretty narrowly and really based on is there

domestic capacity or not. i think that is a legitimate basis to try to fine tune things and shouldn't be the, you know the way to get some shenanigans or to weaken the overall relief because the relief is based on helping the domestic industry. >> did you want to follow up on that at all? >> i'll just say one quick thing on aluminum. we are being very individual labtlant about the number of exclusions and exceptions that are granted. things out take some of the market, we want to make sure it's not open season on imports because that will defeat the purpose in the first place. >> there's a question there. >> last week, senator sherrod brown at the national press club made pointed related to trade similar to what you all made. he then also said but i wish

president trump wouldn't use the word trade war when he talks about this. to what extent is the administration stepping on itself or undermining its own effort through some of the rhetoric the president uses in relation to this? >> anyone want to -- >> i think the administration really prefers to make headlines. i think they prefer bombast over actual strategy. that's part of the problem. they're also -- they seem to be shooting themselves, in fact, each other, as they make policy. one day we're making good policy on steel, the next day they announce that they're going to suddenly re-enter the trade negotiations. that's part of the reason the president was elected, he opposed those. then friday they announced the -- the treasury announced in their semiannual foreign exchange report they were not finding any countries guilty of

currency manipulation, something we haven't talked about. that is the most important determiner of whether or not the u.s. has an improving trade balance. whether or not we have an appropriately valued exchange rate. and china and other countries have been manipulating currencies for queers. this is the single most important reason why we have large trade deficits. so this administration has no trade strategy for dealing with those issues. they -- they engage in what i call trade policy by press release. >> i think -- sr.ry, go ahead. >> one of the benefits, i suppose, of the way the president is talking about this issue is that it is focusing the mind. i think we have always had this idea that a la say zaire approach on trade would be to our long-term benefit. these tariffs and the discussion around overcapacity has started to focus people on what exactly state capitalism is, what it

means, and when you link it to the made in china 2025 strategy, even people like senator cornyn are say, we might be in a trade war an i'm not sure we're fighting back. that's what he said at senate finance last year. even if he -- last week. even if you wouldn't frame it that way, i think maybe it's not unhealthy to suggest whether we are responding to a trade war. >> obviously everyone can have their criticisms about how the -- things are rolled out or advertised or described but i think that if you look at the work that was done, if you look at congress' report on the 232. if you look at sumbings tr's new reports on china's compliance, there's a lot of substance there. they're very rks very good. and they are also rejecting sort of the laissez-faire conventional wisdom that's been, what everyone has been saying in this town in both parties for about 20 years and saying, no, this isn't working. the system is not working.

we need to do something about it. i get frustrated sometimes that people don't look at the substance because it's easy to say that the rhetoric is silly or you know, to bomb past -- too bombastic and then just tar everything that's done with that rhetoric rather than understanding that there is some good work being done here. and it's about time to kind of challenge the way things were done previously. so that's kind of my hesitation that i have all the time. >> ok. lacks quota on steel detail on the origins of the steel. can you elaborate on that and could you describe how you think this eadministration should ad mr country exclusions? >> thank you. as i understand it, the quota is simply a limit on total korean

exports to the united states. but without the -- without regard to the origin of the steel. korea is the single largest importer of chinese steel, according to statistics from the -- from the u.n. i've used the u.n. data and tracked this. it's been in some of the reports i've done. as i have said and i wrote this in a number of commentaries, while the tariffs were being debated, i think they should have been used to encourage other countries not only to restrain exports to the u.s. but to restrain imports from these -- of these unfairly traded products. i think the ideal way to do that would be to impose tariffs for, say, korea, to impose tariffs on mports from china to raise the price of those imports to a

fairly traded value. so you can remove them from world markets, at least from the korean market. i think if you look, i published in a u.s. n this newspaper early in april, i quoted leo girard who said something similar to the initial announcement of the quotas. he wanted canada exempted but only if canada agreed to participate in further restraints of unfairly traded products. he had the same idea in mind. >> anybody else want to add to that? ok. >> i would just add, i think what we're seeing about the rollout of tariffs is showing one of the weaknesses of the world trade organization. it's not really structured to address issues of overexass dity. it's not really structured to get at these issues of how do we

get countries that are similarly being harmed by overcapacity and steel -- in steel and alum numb to work together to address those issues in coordination? so we'recy seeing some of that coordination happening now, as elizabeth was talking about with the e.u. doing safeguards investigation but it really is showing that we need, as rob was say a comprehensive approach to trade strategy, we started with some good tactics with the -- these particular tariffs we are talking about today. what we need is comprehensive reform, and that means reform at the w.t.o. some reform in nafta. a lot of our other trade policies. and our overall, you know, what's our domestic economic policy and how does that help achieve the goals that we want of good jobs and good wages and how does it work together with the trade strategy to do that and not just be a source for outsourcing of jobs and exploitation and abuse of

mark, did you have a question? >> my question is, you've been talking about the practical effects but before we get to that, you said that competitors you specialty, the overcapacity is more than general capacity. do you know how much more? >> i don't know how much more but i know the service we do, we are still trying to get that overcapacity out before they can even start ordering from us. >> now, that -- what's happened to your members, you used to have 460, now 00, to 1 by august. i'm sure you've been talking to the men and women who have been laid off since then. what's it been like for them? >> it's kind of heartbreaking but because most of our members members, s, you got

my members, that's been there for 25 years, ready to lose their job. that's 25 years of not being in the work force. i'm setting up all types of programs for them to be reactly nated -- acclimated to finding a job. as far as computer classes, knowing thousand conduct interviews. this is what i'm dealing with. you have guys their 50's that's not ready to retire but are kind of older, you know, old for the age to where they're not familiar with the new way of how to go online and put an application in rather than walk up and get a paper application. it's been very hard. it's just been trying to get some politicians to understand

what's going on and i have been in good support with brendan boyle who is in my district. he's been very helpful, his team has been very helpful trying to give assistance to the veterans who are going on affected in my plant. going through unemployment. we have a t.a.a. program that's -- that i've filed for that's for trade cases and plants that are being affected with trade. that's been very helpful. trying to get our mens abblingly mated back into a trade. to help with schooling. those -- those tiche situations that they're in. as far as financially. the u.s.w. has been very helpful in all that they can do reaching out. so it's just -- it's not been a good feeling. it's not been a good situation. especially now since it's going to be more our older members

that are going to be affected than our younger members, in a worse way. our younger members will be affected as well but they're more acclimated to the work force, being out of work maybe a couple of years instead of 25 years, it's a difference. >> thanks. i just heard folks who are watching that aren't aware, t.a.a. is trade adjustment assistance program. it's a federal program that helps workers who have lost their jobs if they can demonstrate they lost jobs due to trade policies. so are there more questions from the audience? tom. >> what's behind chinese overcapacity? is it a concerted effort? how do they do it? what does it mean for chinese workers? >> so overcapacity is a problem in the steel industry around the world, because every country

wants to have its own steel industry. got good jobs. got a way to gain access to technology. you have something that's very important to national security. so it's not unusual that the steel industry over years gos -- goes through psych olves overcapacity and having to reduce capacity. what's different about china is the scale is completely off the charts of what we've seen before and i think a lot of that has to do not just with central government policies in terms of subsidies, loans from state-owned banks at below-market rates, provision of electricity and labor and land, but also at the provingsal and local -- provincial and local level, every province wants their own steel plant. some of it is coordinated, some of it is a failure of coordination. that's why you have this irrational situation where every single province or region is creating its own steel industry even though they're far, far

yove any capacity they would possibly justify. so there's a lot of complicated history to it. there's a lot the central government in china could do. they come out with announcements every year of what they're going to do, we haven't seen the execution on the ground. these are jobs. when you're in the chinese communist party, you don't want to create a wave of unemployment. what they do is export that excess capacity and that unemployment to other countries. where we work on more of a market basis. that's the challenge that we're fatesing. -- we're facing. >> just to add a few points, china consciously set out to build the largest steel industry in the world. in now, before they entered the w.t.o., they were producing about 100 million tons of steel a year, so was the united states. they now have the capacity to produce about 16 times that, about 1.6 billion tons of steel. china is now the largest exporters of steel in the world

and yet very few of those exports come directly to the united states because our trade bar has been very effective at taking unfairly traded steel out of our market. but that's part of the reason it's showing up in places like korea and japan. they're willing to import that dumped and subsidized steel, turn it into downstream products and ship the downstream products to us. it has a pernicious effect on trade. it's in the just about trade in steel and alum numb. the other point that i would ke about the chinese is that they are consciously attempting to, this was a result of a five-year plan. and they have five-year plans every five years. and they target industries to take them over. china has a very effective state capitalist system. yes there are provincial problems and state government programs. -- problems. if china wanted to reduce excess

capacity they could do it tomorrow. they could threat ton shoot people who don't close their plants. it's very effective. and they haven't done it. i'm sorry to be blunt but that is the nature of the system. so china wants to do this and the last one point i'll make is even though china is a huge exporters -- exporter, consumed 86% of the steel it produces. most of what -- most of what they produce is turned into dune strome products. windmills. washing machines, auto part, aircraft parts. these are things they're now exporting to the rest nofe world. with dumped and subsidized steel. they understand it's strategic it's what they use to conquer world markets, not just in these market bus in all kinds of high- val-added strail markets. that's -- high-value-added industrial markets. >> so if folks are living in a community where over the past 15, 15 years they have seen job loss -- the past 10, 15 years

they have seen job losses in washing machine parts, aerospace and other industries, that's potentially related to chinese overcapacity in steel even though they may not know that's one of the sources of the problem? >> absolutely. china is the largest exporter of manufactured products in the world and the source of half our trade deficit in manufactured goods and many of the parts they export go to other countries. they're coming to us in the form of imported cars from korea and japan. china has a very -- >> find all of this event at c-span.org. the u.s. house is gaveling in now, returning for votes on bills debated earlier this afternoon. eports from the committee on rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the titles. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 830, resolution providing for consideration of the bill, h.r. 5192, to authorize the commissioner of social security to provide confirmation of fraud protection data, to certain permitted