On Monday, Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton came to Pittsburgh for substantive dialogue about their trade policies and, particularly, how they plan to address China's unfair trade practices. The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a labor-management, non-partisan partnership, hosted the forum and rightly put the candidates on the spot...

Monday, manufacturing jobs took center stage at a candidates' forum sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing in Pittsburgh featuring Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton.

Some pundits deride any candidate who stands up for manufacturing or who questions America's failed trade policies. They put labels...

Every day, America sends the equivalent of $700 million to China. That's the toll of our imbalanced trade relationship with the "butchers of Beijing." We send our manufacturing jobs, consumer dollars, and technological know-how to China. In return, we receive low-cost, under-inspected, and, all too often, unsafe consumer products. China...

I've finished watching the twentieth, and possibly final, Democratic candidate debate. For someone like me who follows economic and jobs issues closely, the debate was both fascinating and frustrating.

First, the fascinating. Both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton said they would renegotiate the job-killing North American Free...

It's now confirmed: economic issues will drive both the Republican and Democratic primaries until the presidential nominees are determined. Exit polls in New Hampshire showed that pluralities of Democrats and Republicans rated the economy as the most important issue for them, outpacing Iraq, immigration, health care, and terrorism.

Reporters often heap scorn upon the rigid views of social conservatives and evangelical Christians, but very few of them acknowledge their own overwhelming religious bias: too many reporters worship unflinchingly at the discredited cult of "free trade," even in the absence of facts to support their beliefs.

They...

With apologies to Don McLean, we may all be singing "Bye-bye, American jobs" in a matter of months as cars from the Chery Automobile Company of China, spurred on by a sizable investment of technology and capital from Chrysler, start rolling into the United States in 2009.

This is a...

A presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas can't slide by without at least a couple gambling analogies, so here is my contribution: If the last Democratic debate is any indication, I'll bet the candidates are more likely to be asked in Las Vegas about whether they've seen a UFO (Dennis...

When the Democratic presidential candidates converge on Drexel University in Philadelphia for Tuesday night's DNC/MSNBC debate, which of them will draw on the rich history of that city to offer a new economic vision for America?

When people think of Philadelphia, Betsy Ross or the Declaration of Independence...

This is the moment I've been waiting for. Year after year, the Wall Street Journal pumps up the virtues of "free trade" through its own editorials, submissions on the op-ed page from various luminaries, rants against anyone who dares to challenge the orthodoxy and slanted news coverage of trade-related matters....

While the primary and caucus calendar continues to be condensed, the presidential candidate debates seem to plod on and on. As more people start tuning into the debates, let's hope the candidates and moderators start getting serious about more issues that matter to voters.

So far, we've figured out who...

Today's Second Biennial Sino-U.S. Consumer Product Safety Summit in Washington provides an excellent opportunity to review both the overall state of U.S.-China trade relations and the specific issue of consumer product quality. As representatives of both the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and China's General Administration for Quality Supervision,...

U.S. exports to China last year totaled $52 billion, which pales in comparison to the $285 billion in Chinese imports coming into the U.S. The result is not only a record trade deficit, but also a blow to our GDP, lost jobs, unsafe products, and an erosion of our manufacturing...

Does the YouTube generation care about jobs? You bet. Did that come across at Monday night's debate? Not at all.

Two things are clear to me after the debate: jobs and economic issues will continue to get short shrift in the televised debates, and the "direct questioning" format...

While millions of American will be celebrating on the Fourth of July with parades, fireworks and picnics, we should know that the free market in which we live is not truly free, nor does it enhance the freedoms we enjoy as citizens. This Independence Day,...

What happened after Sen. Hillary Clinton announced in Detroit on Saturday that she would oppose the proposed US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, based on her careful analysis of the deal? Why, swift condemnation from the mainstream media editorial pages, of course.

This is one of the oldest pieces of...

The presidential candidates--Democratic and Republican--will have plenty of opportunities to discuss jobs and the economy at the scores of debates scheduled over the summer. But two questions will determine whether or not voters will actually hear the real discussion that's needed.

First, will the debate panelists or moderators...

This week in Washington, the Secretaries of the Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, as well as the U.S. Trade Representative and EPA Administrator, will sit across the table from their Chinese counterparts. For two days, these leaders will politely exchange views, smile for photos, shake hands and then adjourn the...