Sherrod Brown: “it is an interesting time to be in our Nation's capital. There are more chief executive officers, more CEOs, of the…”

“it is an interesting time to be in our Nation's capital. There are more chief executive officers, more CEOs, of the country's largest corporations roaming the halls this week and next week than perhaps anytime in recent American political history. The reason? The United States Congress is considering giving Permanent Most Favored Nation status trading privileges to the People's Republic of China. When it comes to competing for U.S. trade and investment dollars, democratic countries in the developing world are losing ground to more authoritarian countries in the developing world, like China. The CEOs that come to our offices and implore us to support permanent trade advantages for the People's Republic of China and its communist regime tell us that China is a lucrative market, with 1.2 billion potential consumers. What they do not tell us, but what is the most important to them, is that China is a nation of 1.2 billion potential workers, workers who are paid 30 cents an hour, workers who do not talk back, workers who cannot form unions, workers who do not benefit from any worker safety legislation or environmental laws or food safety standards. In the post-Cold War decade, the share of developing country exports to the U.S. for democratic nations fell from 53 percent to 34 percent, a decrease of 18 percentage points.”