Readers Respond: Free trade vs. price dumping

An article about a U.S. Commerce Department ruling that some imported bottom-mount refrigerators were sold at prices unfair to American competitors led to several letters.

“There is no way that free enterprise businesses can compete and win against companies being underwritten by their countries.

“There is a core group of Americans who are being ignored in this NEW GLOBAL FREE TRADE economy. Not everyone can go to college or be trained for high tech jobs.

“In the past, Americans who graduated from high school could go get a job at the local factory and have good benefits and raise a family. Our factories have minimum wage, EPA, OSHA, health insurance, unemployment insurance, taxes, etc. These factories have been and are going overseas at a rapid pace. We are stupid to let other countries ship goods to us that have none of the same requirements. I do not care how cheaply products get made from China; if there are no jobs, you cannot buy them. A healthy manufacturing America has a strong underlying buying power.

This country was built on manufacturing. They say our initiative, ingenuity and technology will save us, but we are losing that too. We had better wake up or learn to say, ‘Want fries with that?’ "

— Joe Patton

“Other countries do it to us! We need to protect American businesses much more stringently than we do. I support the ruling!”

— Name withheld

“The antidumping [effort] has not worked for our industry. Canadian softwood has a duty coming into the U.S. because of pressure from U.S. producers. They just ship their cheap wood elsewhere now. China gets a majority of it. Softwood prices have been depressed for U.S. and Canadian producers since it was imposed.”

— John Cole 

“Dumping. The very name is calculated to put companies in a bad light to avoid the real issue. Domestic companies don’t want to lose market share but in protecting them we damage consumers. ‘Dumping’ rules interfere with a free market.

“Any attempt to mess with the free market is a stab in the dark. How low is too low? When is it just a competitive price, and when is it dumping? What people are willing to sell for and pay for should not come under the purview of the bureaucrat. No one knows the answer except the people in the transaction.

“Either you believe in a free market or you don’t.”

— Les Burch

Brighton, Colo.