Getting Direct Foreign Investment In US Workers

Remember the Texas wind project that got this whole discussion started about where the stimulus money was going? The Chinese company involved in the project is now scoping out sites in Nevada for a 1,000 person manufacturing and assembly plant, like they said they would.

The final wind installation in Texas, while it would be completed before this plant could open, will also source 70% of its parts from the US and from US-made steel. I'd pointed out previously that because a wind turbine is a big pole with an engine on top, that wouldn't necessarily mean that many of the more complicated parts were being made here. However, as I've gathered since first looking into it, a couple years ago it would barely have been possible to source so much domestically and the high end production is indeed ramping up.

It is, therefore and as far as I can tell, good progress and in keeping with the creation of long term demand that a robust US wind industry could grow up to meet. If China's A-Power follows through with the factory, then we'll have a Chinese company hiring more Americans, which is all to the good and more than some American companies have been doing lately.

Many US multinationals have made it abundantly clear that they have no loyalty to US workers and no interest in creating good job opportunities here. Our own finance industry seems often to frown on investing in us, even as they take our money. If companies from other countries want to step up and recognize the value of the American workforce, that's fine by me.

Please, invest in us. Come out, come out, whoever you are. Americans are good workers and productive, you'll be glad you came.

Because the point really is that there need to be good jobs here. Not that US companies are always best, not that people in other parts of the world shouldn't have jobs too, but that impoverishing Americans by shutting down our job market is bad policy, bad for the environment, bad economics, bad public health.

If cheerleaders for global trade want the public in any country to keep supporting it, then global trade must start benefiting that public. The economy must serve the people, not the other way around.

So while it's frustrating when trade absolutism makes it hard to fund clean energy in the current business climate, this is why it was important to have the conversation about whether enough Americans are being employed by stimulus-funded projects. I suppose something could still go awry, but the goal of having more people in this country working at the end of the matter than at the beginning seems to be within reach.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future