MATTHEW SWAIN COLUMN: Senators need to do more to protect jobs – The Stanly News & Press

For decades the Chinese Communist Party has been determined to surpass the United States as a global leader because of the significant economic and political progress we’ve made worldwide. While American leadership always strives for equity and integrity, the CCP often plays by its own rules to gain an unfair advantage.
Historically, the CCP has stolen an enormous amount of U.S. intellectual property and illegally dumped subsidized goods into the U.S. to weaken our domestic industry. Despite our best efforts, China’s unethical practices have led to a decline in US-based manufacturing and North Carolina has not been immune.
In 1990, more than 860,000 North Carolinians worked in manufacturing. Thanks to China, that number dropped to 450,000 by 2020. Such a drastic change to North Carolina’s economy thankfully came with growth in the tech and healthcare sectors. However, those improvements mostly benefited urban areas, leaving rural North Carolinians somewhat behind.
U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Ted Budd (R-NC) have acted to protect manufacturers from Chinese interference, like empowering American manufacturers to sue Chinese companies and preventing China from acquiring sensitive industry information.
Those were good first steps, but there is still more they can do to protect our manufacturing industry like reducing regulations, reforming America’s patent system, and protecting supply chains.
Various federal agencies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have imposed a number of regulations that severely damage American manufacturing, especially small-to-medium-sized companies. Like a policy the EPA is considering that would directly target North Carolina’s military bases and semiconductor industry, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state. Our senators should do everything they can to stop the Biden administration from regulating our jobs to death.
In order to keep America competitive, Tillis and Budd can lead the charge by updating our world-class patent system and should start with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). The ITC is tasked with investigating foreign companies that violate U.S. patents in order to protect American industry and consumers from unfair foreign trade and manufacturing practices. Although this agency should be a strong tool to help American companies, it instead has been hijacked by foreign countries seeking to target our economy.
Every time the ITC rules in favor of a foreign company or foreign patent troll, the CCP benefits. Instead of competing on the world stage, U.S. companies are forced to spend millions of dollars on each case just to fend off patent trolls, either in the form of litigation fees or legal settlements. Unfortunately, our state’s economy has fallen victim to the ITC’s wrongdoing.
The ITC recently ruled against GE, one of the largest employers in North Carolina. It’s only a matter of time before irreparable damage is done. The ITC almost allowed the illegal import of cheap tires from Southeast Asia, which would have hurt Bridgestone, one of the largest manufacturers in the state.
To protect North Carolinians’ jobs, Tillis and Budd should introduce the Advancing America’s Interests Act in the Senate, which would protect American industries and consumers by heightening the standards required to bring cases before the ITC.
Protecting American economic and consumer interests cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. American manufacturing suffered from supply chain disruptions during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, delaying shipments and increasing production costs, largely because we’ve become a little too dependent on foreign adversaries like China and Russia.
To prevent America’s adversaries from holding us hostage, Tillis and Budd should pass legislation incentivizing onshoring and friend-shoring, or shifting production of crucial goods to the American homeland and to our allies.
Tillis and Budd have always taken action to protect North Carolina manufacturing. By cutting regulations, reforming the ITC through the Advancing America’s Interests Act, and securing global supply chains, our senators can help North Carolina protect our jobs and restore our manufacturing economy.

Matthew Swain is chairman of the Stanly County Republican Party and a former county commissioner.