By Evan Bayh

On Friday, the Obama administration issued a long-awaited ruling to prevent China from flooding U.S. markets with foreign-made tires to the detriment of American workers. The decision to impose additional duties on Chinese-made tires will help save middle-class Hoosier jobs and allow our domestic tire industry to maintain its long-term viability.

The trade case of national importance was brought by the hardworking men and women of the B.F. Goodrich/Michelin Manufacturing plant in Woodburn. The White House’s decision to impose a 35 percent levy on car and light-truck tires imported from China sends a powerful message to the Chinese government that the United States is serious about holding Beijing to its trade agreements.

This May, I testified before the International Trade Commission and argued for a strong remedy in this matter. China has been flooding the U.S. tire market for years. The volume of Chinese tire imports into our country more than doubled from 2004 to 2008. Measured in dollar value, the import growth of Chinese tires has been a staggering 295 percent.

As a consequence, more than 5,000 U.S. tire workers have lost their jobs. Four American tire plants have closed, and others have scaled back production. The B.F. Goodrich plant outside Fort Wayne began laying off workers in April.

American highways have been crisscrossed for nearly half a century by trucks and passenger vehicles outfitted with tires made in Woodburn. B.F. Goodrich has survived on the quality of its product and the work ethic of the Hoosiers it employs. This spring, unwilling to see their industry damaged by China’s unfair trading practices, local plant workers stood up for their rights by invoking a law agreed to by China when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

When I testified before the ITC, I told commissioners that Hoosier workers have proved they will outperform any competitor – foreign or domestic – when everyone is playing by the same rules. The ITC found a clear violation by China and sent the matter to the White House to determine what action to take. The last four times the ITC had ruled that foreign products were flooding and disrupting U.S. markets, the Bush administration took no action. Fortunately, this time was different.

Obama sides with workers

In the first major trade test for the Obama administration, the president sided with American workers. This decision will help 15,000 workers and 35,000 retirees who depend on the survival of domestic tire production, including 1,300 Fort Wayne-area workers at B.F. Goodrich.

For our trade laws to mean anything, they must be enforced. For many years, Indiana’s manufacturing economy has been hindered by lax U.S. trade enforcement, which can give our foreign competitors a leg up in the global marketplace. When China was granted WTO membership in 2001, many of us were concerned that the country’s subsidized economic system might lead to exactly this type of overproduction and product surges, so we insisted on strong legal safeguards. We are right to invoke them in this case.

As a general proposition, I believe that robust participation in the global economy is good for Hoosier businesses. Nearly 20 percent of all manufacturing workers in Indiana depend on exports for their jobs. More than 6,000 companies exported goods from Indiana locations in 2007 – the vast majority small- and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees. There are markets across the globe for products made in Indiana, and our international trading relationships help our state’s workers and consumers alike.

However, we must be careful when a trading partner floods our markets with products made by cheap labor working in poor environmental conditions in industries propped up with generous government subsidies. To keep the playing field level, Washington must invoke the remedies agreed upon by our trading partners to preserve balance in our commercial relationships.

Threats of Chinese retaliation are unwarranted. Beijing agreed to abide by our trade surge laws when it joined the WTO, and China currently controls 17 percent of the U.S. tire market. Chinese leaders know they caused a market disruption, and they know we are well within our legal rights to take action.

As America struggles toward economic recovery, Hoosier workers should not have to worry about the shuttering of their workplace in the face of one-sided import trends. Too many Midwest manufacturing towns have been harmed by past government inaction. When domestic facilities close or hemorrhage jobs because of unfair trade, it has a far-reaching effect. Retailers, restaurants and other local businesses suffer declines in sales, while hard-pressed municipalities lose needed tax revenue.

The president’s decision in this case serves as a needed reminder to our No. 2 trading partner that free and fair trade must be a two-way street.

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