Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), joined by Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC), Rick Scott (R-FL), and J.D. Vance (R-OH), introduced a plan to end the United States’ decades-long, job-killing free trade status with China.
In 2001, China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the backing of former President Bush’s administration and was subsequently awarded “permanent normal trade relations status” by the U.S. after congressional approval.
As a result of authorizing U.S. free trade with China, nearly four million American jobs have been eliminated from the U.S. economy from 2001 to 2018 — including almost three million domestic manufacturing jobs, as multinational corporations readily shipped jobs overseas without penalties from the government.
During that same period, at least 50,000 American manufacturing plants closed down.
Cotton’s legislation, the China Trade Relations Act,…
