By: Nathan Wellman
While Walmart’s history of uprooting small businesses is generally well known by now, a new report suggests that the corporate retail outlet is also wrecking with an over-reliance on goods made in China.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Walmart’s reliance on cheap Chinese imports have cost 400,000 American jobs in the 12-year period from 2001-2013.
As a result, a whopping 15 percent of the United States trade deficit with China can be traced back to Walmart. (The 2013 deficit was at around 324 billion dollars, of which Walmart is responsible for 49 billion.)
“Walmart has aided China’s abuse of labor rights and its violations of fair trade (norms) by providing a conduit for the distribution of artificially cheap and subsidized Chinese exports to the United States,” the EPI study said.
The study’s author, Robert E. Scott, also added that “the jobs we’re losing are good-paying manufacturing jobs, which pay higher wages and provide better benefits.” About 75% of American jobs lost from the deficit are manufacturing jobs, further crippling the US’s ability to create and export our own products and increasing our reliance on Chinese goods – many of which are made at the cost of the basic human rights of its workers.
Under pressure, Walmart recently pledged to invest $50 billion into American-made products. And yet, this report reveals that “The growing Walmart trade deficit with China has displaced more than 100 U.S. jobs for every actual or promised job created through this program.”
The EPI calls these numbers “conservative” estimates.
As America buckles under more foreign debt and weakened export capacities with every passing year, the report directly states that “Walmart has played a major role in creating that imbalance.
While the price of Walmart’s goods are generally more inexpensive, it has become clear that the American consumer is actually paying for these goods with the health of our own economy. Is this a price that we are willing to pay?
http://usuncut.com/news/walmart-imports-destroyed-400000-jobs-since-2001/
Walmart’s Imports from China Destroyed 400,000 US Jobs Since 2001, New Study Says