The U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.8 million American jobs since 2001.  You can blame this, in part, on a deliberately undervalued currency, which has helped China to become an export powerhouse.

Ohio's manufacturers and their workers are particularly well aware of the toll of this unbalanced trade with China, having lost more than 100,000 jobs to China in the past decade.

The Ohio House of Representatives is particularly concerned.  Last week, the Ohio House unanimously passed a resolution urging the President and Congress to cite China as a currency manipulator.

Prior to the resolution's passage, the Akron Legal News quoted Ohio House Rep. Mike Dovilla (R-Berea) as saying that China has “significantly intervened in foreign exchange markets in order to hold the value of their currency within its tight and artificial trading band, resulting in enormous grown in China’s dollar reserves.”

In offering sponsor testimony for the resolution, Dovilla urged effort to restore an environment for job creation in Ohio: "...in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, one of our strategic adversaries is not working with that same goal in mind for the hard-working citizens of our great state."

Dovilla said he’s long been a proponent of free markets and fair trade and believes that the federal government must enforce U.S. trade laws against illegal imports and currency manipulation and “help American companies fight unfair trade from nations like China.”

Read more about Ohio's call for a level playing field for its manufacturers.