While President Barack Obama has attacked Mitt Romney for advising businesses that outsourced jobs,
many of the executives on the president's own jobs creation council run or advise companies that import cheaper overseas goods instead of buying American alternatives, U.S. trade records show.
Commerce Department import records reviewed by the Washington Guardian show the companies affiliated with the 23 active and 3 ex-officio members of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness imported 12,366 shipments from China alone -- totaling more than 20 billion pounds in weight -- during the 18 months since they began advising the White House in January 2011.
Just over half the council members were affiliated with firms that reported Chinese imports ranging from bulk steel and furniture to airline parts, appliance electronics and cosmetics.
The Made-in-China track record of the Jobs Council members has frustrated some labor unions key to the president's re-election, and could complicate Obama's strategy against his Republican opponent by illustrating that outsourcing is increasingly inevitable in a global economy.
“Why is stuff outsourced? The answer is, in those cases the work abroad is much cheaper than it is in the United States,” explained James T. Bennett, a George Mason University economics professor. “It’s market forces that create outsourcing of jobs, and it does not matter who is president. It is going to continue.”
Because the Commerce records do not indicate the value of the imports, it is impossible to quantify what percentage of supplies the companies get from overseas. But some of the firms tied to Jobs Council members acknowledge it is significant.
Chemical giant DuPont, which reported more than 1,400 shipments of Chinese imports over the last 18 months, told the Washington Guardian it gets about a third of its supply chain outside the United States.
Boeing, whose CEO, Jim McNerney, serves on both the Jobs Council and as chairman of the President’s Export Council, says it is Beijing's largest customer for aviation parts and boasts on its Web site that it has “manufacturing, service and technology partnerships" with companies around the world, including “contracts with 22,000 suppliers and partners globally.”
And the Hyatt Hotel chain -- tied to major Obama fundraiser and Jobs Council member Penny Pritzker -- imported from China and Singapore at least 83 shipments with 300 tons of chairs, sofas and safes enclosed in 4,500 crates. Even if each crate contained just one piece of furniture, Hyatt imported enough since 2011 to add a piece of new furniture to about five percent of its North American hotel rooms, the records show.
White House and Obama campaign officials declined to comment, despite repeated requests via email and phone. But representatives of the various firms make no apologies and say their imports are a matter of simple bargain shopping.
http://www.washingtonguardian.com/outsource-outrage
Logged
