Senator Calls for Investigation of Chinese Logging
Washington, DC, November 30, 2006--A Democratic senator asked the Bush administration to investigate Chinese logging practices that he said have hurt U.S. producers of hardwood used in furniture.
In letters to the U.S. Trade Representative and other officials, Senator Ron Wyden urged the administration to investigate practices ranging from subsidies of China's timber industry to possible fraudulent labeling of Chinese hardwood plywood and illegal logging. Wyden represents Oregon, a West Coast state with a major logging industry.
"Over the past few years, the U.S. hardwood plywood sector has experienced a dramatic downturn, which has put the entire U.S. industry in jeopardy," Wyden wrote, citing declines since 2003 in U.S. production, shipment volume and market share.
"At the same time, the Chinese hardwood plywood sector has been surging. This dramatic growth in the Chinese industry _ at the apparent expense of U.S. industry _ is extremely troubling because it may be based on a number of illegal trade practices," Wyden said.
Wyden, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said he would seek to hold a hearing on the issue next year after Democrats take control of Congress.
A spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said her office will review the letter. A message left Wednesday with the Chinese Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned.
Schwab, the Bush administration's top trade negotiator, said in a speech Tuesday that President George W. Bush hopes to achieve bipartisan support for an aggressive trade liberalization agenda in the next Congress, even with Democrats in control. That party generally is more leery of unrestricted trade than Bush's Republicans.
Schwab warned against any move to erect protectionist barriers against imports, which critics say are needed in the face of record trade deficits they contend are costing American jobs.
Many Democrats campaigned against Bush's trade policies during this year's election season, saying the administration had failed to do enough to halt the loss of manufacturing jobs to low-wage foreign countries such as China. Since Bush took office in 2001, the United States has lost nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs.
Joseph Gonyea III, chief operating officer of Oregon-based Timber Products Co., said he and others in the United States support free trade as long as it is fair.
"This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is about protecting good jobs in communities throughout our country, by ensuring that business is not only done in free trade but in fair trade," Gonyea said.
China is one of the world's fastest-growing producers of hardwood plywood, with exports topping $13 billion (€9.9 billion) last year.
A June report by the U.S. International Trade Commission said "a relatively large portion of China's log imports may be from questionable sources." The report estimated that as much as half of China's hardwood log imports from Russia and West Africa are from suspicious or illegal sources.
