The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conducted a recent hearing on President Joe Biden's People's Republic of China (PRC) Strategy.
During the session, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California drew attention to the concerning reality that the U.S. lags behind China in critical areas, such as steel production, contributing to a trade deficit for the country, according to a video of the hearing.
"While struggling today, China's economy is estimated by Goldman Sachs to possibly overtake the U.S. in the next ten years," U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said to Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Thea D. Rozman Kendler during the hearing. "Most notably, in 2022, the U.S. had a 382 billion dollar trade deficit with China. In 1990, one year before the collapse, the U.S. had a trade surplus of over 2 billion dollars with the USSR right before their collapse.
"Would the CCP be able to afford their military operations, build detention camps, subsidize their industries against ours, if they had a trade deficit with the U.S. instead of a surplus of 382 billion dollars?" Luetkemeyer added during the hearing.
"If you look at the top 15 steel companies in the world, the U.S. doesn’t have a single one. Nine of them are in China," Khanna said, according to a July 21 Twitter post from the Select Committee on the CCP.
In April, China's trade surplus, as the world's second-largest economy, increased to $90.21 billion, up from the surplus of $88.2 billion the previous month. The U.S. Census Bureau's foreign trade data from 2018 revealed that during that year, China exported $380 billion more in goods and services to the U.S. than it imported, resulting in a deficit of $419 billion, according to the Library of Congress.
"For 40 years, we've hollowed out our industrial base & allowed China to join the WTO leading to massive trade deficits," Khanna said in a Twitter post. "We just watched as steel & aluminum left. I asked the witnesses at today’s @committeeonccp hearing for a commitment to lower the trade deficit."
China, a major player in the global steel and aluminum industries, produces more than 60% of the world's steel and 57% of aluminum. It is projected China's steel exports in 2023 will reach the highest level since 2016, with an estimated 77 million metric tons being shipped, which is more than last year's total of 67.32 million metric tons. Strong demand from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa is contributing to this increase, according to Reuters.
