Paul testified before the House Select Committee on China and urged the committee to support a bailout to get things back on track.
Scott Paul, president of the Federation of American Manufacturing, warned lawmakers on Wednesday that China’s dominance in global shipbuilding poses an immense economic and national security threat to the United States.
Paul appeared as a witness before the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Hearing Paul examined China’s strategies to “dominate semiconductors, shipbuilding and drones,” with a particular focus on commercial shipbuilding, an industry that has become all but obsolete in the United States due to decades of underinvestment and a host of unfair trade practices by China.
“The greatest impediment to shipbuilding in the United States is China’s unfair trade practices,” Paul testified. “While any country seeking to develop maritime capabilities should not be criticized, Beijing’s ambitions go far beyond that. China’s shipbuilding capabilities have been rapidly improved through a series of five-year plan initiatives dating back more than two decades.”
The statistics are staggering: In 1975, the U.S. employed 180,000 people in shipbuilding and received orders for more than 70 merchant ships per year. But much of that has dried up, and the number of major U.S. merchant shipyards has fallen to just seven.
The United States currently builds 10 ocean-going merchant ships per year, while China deploys more than 1,000, and China has more than 5,500 ocean-going merchant ships registered to its flagships, while the United States has fewer than 80.
According to a leaked slide from the U.S. Navy, China’s shipbuilding capacity is currently 232 times that of the U.S. “The situation is so bad that our Navy will have no choice but to rely on Chinese-made dry docks in certain circumstances.”
To get things back on track, the U.S. must be willing to stand up to China’s bad practices. Paul told committee members: Proposed Relief Measures in the “Section 301” Trade Declaration It was established by the United Steelworkers (USW) and a coalition of labor unions. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is currently investigating China’s practices in the shipbuilding sector and is expected to release its findings within a year.
Paul also introduced lawmakers to recommendations outlined in a recent report on excess capacity in several sectors in China. Shock Waves: The ripple effects of China’s over-industrialization on American manufacturing and factory workers.
“This effort deserves your support because it directly and indirectly touches shipbuilding industries in every state,” Paul told the committee. “We cannot allow our nation’s shipbuilding capabilities to continue to be harmed by the Chinese Communist Party’s predatory control over a sector that is vital to our economy and national security.”
click Paul’s oral testimony is here and Here for written testimony.
