In this week’s CFR.org Online Debate, the Economic Policy Institute’s Robert E. Scott says the United States must “put some backbone in our trade policy” toward China. He says the United States should toughen trade laws to “ensure that systematic subsidies that benefit all exporters are countervailed.”He also calls on Congress to spearhead an independent government agency “with the resources and authority to file fair trade cases in the United States and at the WTO.” Such an agency, he says, could help create a “level playing field.”

Daniel J. Ikenson from the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies says Scott’s policy prescriptions “subordinate the multitude of individual U.S. economic interests to manufacturers’ interests.” He also contests Scott’s assertion that trade deficits are a significant cause of job loss. “Manufacturing jobs are in decline worldwide, even in perennial trade surplus countries like Japan and Germany, as well as in China,” Ikenson says.

To read more of this Online Debate, click here.

To learn about the presidential candidates’ stances on U.S. policy toward China, click here.