Trade with China actually boosts US employment

American trade with China has not proved pivotal to the loss of US jobs and in fact such engagement boosts employment overall, according to new studies highlighted by an influential Washington-based think tank and top American university on Friday. Defying conventional thinking, the research highlighted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies' Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics and the Stanford Centre on China's Economy and Institutions concluded the United States had experienced "No net employment loss due to trade with China". Re Kurmann of Drexel University, another researcher whose similar findings were also highlighted, said China did not figure prominently in the US jobs situation. "Every country" experienced job losses of some kind after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, Kurmann said, adding that the US policy formulated in response to its rival's meteoric economic rise might have made it more "Vulnerable" to job losses due to a lack of government support. China's total trade surplus with the US shrank to US$36. President of the US Chamber of Commerce's China Centre, countered that while academics can "Debate the mix of jobs between manufacturing and services", the "Bottom line" in policymaking and politics is that there was "a significant shock tied to the US economy stemming from China's entry to the WTO". The US "Misjudged the speed" of that shock and was slow to address "Distortions emanating from China and the Chinese model", Waterman said.