American workers, companies and farmers will never reap the benefits of the global marketplace if other countries are allowed to engage in unfair trade practices like illegal subsidization, currency manipulation and intellectual property theft. Senator Bayh continues to lead the fight to combat these illegal trade practices by other countries to ensure hardworking Hoosiers who play by the rules can compete in today’s global economy.

Trade Rules with Teeth

Senator Bayh strongly believes U.S. trading partners should be held accountable for violating fair trade rules. He has supported free trade agreements with Australia, Singapore, Chile, Jordan and Peru, which have provided good opportunities for Hoosier companies and workers, while protecting against intellectual property theft, illegal subsidies and other unlawful trade practices. At the same time, he has opposed trade agreements with countries that have a history of violating labor rights. In 2005, he opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement because of the weak protections against labor rights and the Bush administration’s refusal to enforce international trade laws.

Stopping Theft of American Ideas

Innovation, creativity and hard work have fueled the upward surge of our economy, and created countless jobs. Senator Bayh believes America’s success in the global economy depends largely on its ability to protect its innovations and breakthrough products. American businesses lose $250 billion annually because of intellectual property theft and the U.S. auto industry alone estimates that it could hire another 200,000 workers if not for counterfeit auto parts produced in other countries. As one of the leading voices in protecting U.S. intellectual property rights, Senator Bayh authored the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Act, a bold new strategy for protecting American companies from criminals bent on pirating or counterfeiting their products and cutting-edge designs. Believing that countries must earn the right to become a most-favored U.S. trading partner, Senator Bayh opposes Russia’s membership into the World Trade Organization until that country improves its record on copyright piracy.

Senator Bayh has taken additional steps to eliminate intellectual property theft at home, and abroad. He helped to pass the Stop Counterfeiting in Manufactured Goods Act, mandating the destruction of counterfeit goods as well as allowing law enforcement officials to seize equipment used to make such illegal goods. Passed in 2006, the Act has also made trafficking in counterfeit "trademarks" illegal. Senator Bayh has also pressed the Bush administration to enforce U.S. rights under international agreements. He has consistently urged President Bush to raise this issue during meetings with foreign governments. Senator Bayh opposes entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) for those countries with deplorable records on protecting intellectual property rights. He took a strong position against allowing Russia into the WTO because of that country’s willingness to allow rampant piracy of U.S. copyrighted products.

Stopping Overseas Subsidies Act

Each day, American workers and companies are undercut in the global marketplace by foreign countries that subsidize their industries in order to obtain an unfair advantage. These subsidies range from providing below interest-rate loans to companies that aren’t credit-worthy to giving preferential access to raw materials and other resources needed by manufacturers. Currently, American companies have no direct recourse to combat subsidies used by non-market or state-controlled economies, like China. To help protect American companies and workers, Senator Bayh has introduced the Stopping Overseas Subsidies (SOS) Act, which would ensure that countervailing duties can be placed on imports from countries that violate international trade rules with illegal subsidies.

Fair Currency Practices Act

Today foreign countries, most notably China, artificially manipulate the value of their currency in order to make their products less expensive on the world market, giving them a price advantage over U.S. manufacturers. When it entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, China agreed to end this practice, but hasn’t. Senator Bayh has led a bipartisan group of Senators in championing the Fair Currency Practices Act, which would categorize China’s currency policy as an illegal foreign subsidy. This would enable U.S. companies to seek recourse under anti-subsidy laws. If enacted, American companies hurt by China’s low-valued currency could take action to eliminate the illegal benefits received by Chinese exporters.

China Currency Manipulation Act

Senator Bayh is working to correct a flaw in existing law that allows the Treasury Department to avoid designating China as a country that Manipulates its currency. The new China Manipulation Act makes a Congressional finding that the Chinese government is deliberately intervening in currency markets to keep the value of the Yuan low against the dollar to gain an unfair competitive advantage in the global marketplace. The bill instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to designate China under a federal law that requires Treasury to monitor the currency practices of foreign nations. The Treasury Secretary would be required to take the steps specified in Dodd-Shelby currency legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee in July 2007 with respect to currency manipulators.

Enforcing U.S. Trade Laws

American companies and workers are continually facing an avalanche of unfairly dumped and subsidized products. Senator Bayh has been a strong advocate for the enforcement of U.S. fair trade laws against such practices. He has stood up for American companies by testifying at the International Trade Commission hearings on antidumping and countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) cases. In particular, steel companies and workers have been targeted by overseas producers. With Indiana being the largest steel producing state in the country and nearly 30,000 Hoosiers employed in the industry, Senator Bayh has taken a strong position in helping level the playing field with overseas steelmakers by actively petitioning both the Clinton and Bush administrations to open an investigation into unfair trade practices of foreign steel producers. The investigation led to the temporary tariffs that gave the steel companies time to restructure and streamline their operations, and put them in a better position to compete in the global marketplace.