More than 400,000 jobs in the U.S. auto supply chain have been lost since 2000 and another 1.6 million U.S. jobs are at risk unless China’s illegal trading practices are curtailed, according to three reports released yesterday by the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM).
 
“Taken together, these three reports show beyond a shadow of a doubt that China’s blatant use of illegal government subsidies and a web of predatory trade practices on a massive scale are undercutting companies in the U.S. auto supply chain,” said Scott Paul, the AAM’s executive director.
 
One of the reports cites $27.5 billion in government subsidies to the Chinese auto-parts industry and notes that China’s central government has committed to disbursing an additional $10.9 billion in subsidies for industrial restructuring and technological development in the industry.
 
In the past decade, imports of Chinese auto parts to the United States have increased eightfold and are expected to rise further. Since 2001, an estimated $62 billion worth of Chinese auto parts have been imported into the United States, causing the auto parts trade deficit with China to increase by more than 850 percent to more than $8 billion.

“It’s essential that federal action be taken to challenge these abuses before they completely undermine the job recovery under way in the U.S. auto industry,” Paul said in a press release.