President Joe Biden says the US will review a union petition on allegations of unfair trade practices by China’s shipbuilding industry.
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai “will take a hard look at this petition in accordance with the law”, Biden said in a post on social media platform X.
“We’ll always stand against China’s unfair practices — and as long as I am president, I’ll fight for US workers and jobs.”
In a separate posting on X, Tai said she and the Biden administration “are fighting every day to put working families first, rebuild American manufacturing, and strengthen our supply chains. I look forward to reviewing this petition in detail.”
Tai referred to US concerns about risks to global supply chains in a statement citing China’s “acts, policies and practices” in shipbuilding, maritime business and logistics.
China has created “dependencies and vulnerabilities” in steel, aluminium, solar, battery and critical mineral sectors, she added.
On Tuesday, the United Steelworkers (USW) union led a coalition of labour organisations in filing a Section 301 petition, calling on Tai to investigate Chinese commercial shipbuilding, which it said had employed an “array of non-market policies”.
Tai has 45 days to determine whether to pursue an investigation.
USW international president David McCall said in the filing that the US, which once had nearly 30 major shipyards, was now “down to just a handful”.
“That correlates with more than 70,000 lost shipbuilding jobs, not to mention all the secondary jobs the industry supports,” he said.
He claimed that China was using commercial shipbuilding to “dominate the full spectrum of global trade, choking out all competitors”.
“If we do not act quickly, we will soon be dependent on China not only for the products their vessels bring into our ports but also for the ships themselves,” he said.
The growing imbalance in shipbuilding also threatens national security, he added, with China surpassing the US as having the world’s largest navy.
“Rebuilding our Merchant Marine is not only essential to increasing our nation’s sealift capability, it will help shore up the critical supply chains our military and commercial shipbuilding industries share, making us safer and more resilient,” he said.
McCall said unions have worked with the administration to establish a worker-centred trade policy and ramp up domestic manufacturing capacity through the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS & Science Act.
“Reviving the commercial shipbuilding industry will enable America to expand those investments, ensure a steady supply of goods at home and grow the middle class,” he added.
