Economist Weighs In On Chinese Steel Controversy, Saying There’s Precedent For Collapse

The New York Times published an editorial by economist Peter Navarro that admonishes the MTA for using Chinese steel products in a key portion of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge restoration project.

Navarro, who is a professor of economics and public policy at the business school for the University of California, Irvine, argued that the MTA’s decision to use Chinese steel negatively impacts American jobs and creates safety issues, joining a chorus of critics including Senator Charles Schumer.

Here is an excerpt from Navarro’s piece:

The real problem with this deal is that it doesn’t take into account all of the additional costs that buying “Made in China” brings to the American table. In fact, this failure to consider all costs is the same problem we as consumers face every time we choose a Chinese-made product on price alone — a price that is invariably cheaper.

Consider the safety issue: a scary one, indeed, because China has a very well-deserved reputation for producing inferior and often dangerous products. Such products are as diverse as lead-filled toys, sulfurous drywall, pet food spiked with melamine and heparin tainted with oversulfated chondroitin sulfate.

In the specific case of bridges, six have collapsed across China since July 2011. The official Xinhua news agency has acknowledged that shoddy construction and inferior building materials were contributing factors. There is also a cautionary tale much closer to home.

When California bought Chinese steel to renovate and expand the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, for a project that began in 2002, problems like faulty welds by a Chinese steel fabricator delayed the project for months and led to huge cost overruns. Those delays eroded much of the savings California was banking on when it opted for the “cheap” Chinese steel.

You can read the rest of Navarro’s op-ed by clicking here.