Time to hold China to same trade rules

U.S. policies toward China too often are guided by our government's reluctance to annoy that country's rulers over any issue. To some in Washington, China's economic, military and diplomatic power seem to dictate such a strategy.

But at what cost to American working men and women? Chinese trade and currency policies, which are related, have affected many U.S. companies adversely.

At last, U.S. officials seem to be ready to stand up to Beijing. Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department determined officially the government of China unfairly subsidized $514 million in aluminum products exported to this country last year.

In other words, the Chinese have been using unfair trade practices against U.S. aluminum producers and processors, much as some countries did for years in what proved to be a successful assault on the American steel industry.

The United Steel Workers union, working with a coalition of aluminum companies, filed the trade case against Chinese producers earlier this year. It involves extruded aluminum products.

One signal the Chinese were up to something came in 2007, when that country's share of the extruded aluminum products market in the United States rose from 8 percent to 20 percent. Much of that market share was taken from U.S. companies.

Now that the Commerce Department - with White House approval, no doubt - has acted, some Chinese companies will be required to post cash deposits or bonds to ensure they do not engage in unfair trade practices.

We hope President Barack Obama's administration cracks down hard on the Chinese aluminum producers. While we recognize presidents of both political parties have worked hard to avoid antagonizing Beijing for many years, the requirements of diplomacy should not stand in the way of protecting American workers against unfair competition from any other country.

The federal agency in charge of regulating offshore oil and gas drilling has a new name and a new ethics policy. Neither will do any good unless crooked employees are kept off the agency's payroll.

Once called the Minerals Management Service, the agency was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management after several scandals surfaced. This week, bureau officials announced a new ethics policy aimed at curbing misbehavior.

Under the new policy, bureau employees must notify superiors about potential conflicts of interest - and are not permitted to conduct inspections or other official duties when companies they must deal with have bureau workers' family members or friends on the payroll.

That's a start. But the old MMS was riddled with behavior that was unethical and often illegal under the old rules. Employees broke them. Some MMS workers had sex with representatives of companies they were supposed to be regulating and accepted gifts from the firms. Use of illegal drugs among a few MMS workers was reported. One admitted he was using drugs during an inspection trip.

Bureau officials say the bad employees have been cleared out. We hope so - and, where appropriate, we hope the agency pursues criminal charges against them.

But the renamed agency now must cope with a culture of corruption. The only way to eliminate it is to make it clear - by strict enforcement of new ethics rules - that conflicts of interest and other misbehavior will not be tolerated.