Pet food, toothpaste, toy trains, car tires and several types of fish, all produced in China have been recalled. The recalls have not gone unnoticed by shoppers, based on Associated Press interviews around the country. Many shoppers said they still planned to buy Chinese products because of the low prices
80 percent of the toys sold in America are produced in China. One of the toy recalls involved 1.5 million of the popular Thomas & Friends trains because the toys had been coated at a factory in China with lead paint. China has become the top foreign source of tires in the United States accounting for about 40 percent of the U.S. market last year. China is now the world's leading supplier of seafood, shipping $1.9 billion worth of fish and shellfish to the United States last year, making it the third biggest foreign supplier in the U.S. market.
The government ordered Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J., to recall 450,000 tires alleged for lack of safety feature to keep the tire tread from separating. The pet food products had been found to contain Chinese wheat flour spiked with the chemical melamine. The Chinese-made toothpaste was found to contain an ingredient often used in antifreeze. The Food and Drug Administration on June 28 placed restrictions on imports of Chinese shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace after finding residues of drugs the FDA does not allow in fish. The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced July 5 the recall of Chinese-made jewelry that the agency said could cause lead poisoning and a magnetic building set and plastic castles with small parts that CPSC said could choke children.
These problems have caught the attention of Congress, with members already highly critical of what they see as unfair trade practices they contend have pushed the deficit higher and contributed to the loss of 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000. That deficit hit $233 billion last year. Imports of Chinese products into the United States totaled $288 billion while U.S. exports to China totaled $55 billion. (Source: Martin Crutsingert with Juan Lozano in Houston, Terry Tang in Phoenix, Christine Simmons in Washington and Raquel Maria Dillon in Los Angeles, Washington Post, Jul 6, 2007).