The Chamber of Commerce offered a worried rebuttal this week to the new EPI study, "The China Trade Toll."  That's no surprise, however: Some of the Chamber's largest members are among the key beneficiaries of the status quo with China, so it's not surprising that they'd want to debunk the report.  However, the American people can simply stroll through Wal-Mart and employ a little common sense to intuit that something is indeed amiss in U.S.-China trade relations. For starters, the simple issue is YES or NO-- is China cheating at the rules of world trade?  The answer is an emphatic YES, with the EU, Japan, and the WTO joining U.S. calls for revaluation of China's illegally manipulated currency.  This currency rigging is no doubt adversely affecting U.S. manufacturers and so the Chamber, which professes to represent U.S. companies, should start off any discussion of China by clamoring loudly for Beijing to curb its protectionism. The Chamber has not done so, and has decided to throw in its lot with China.  Funny that they lead their argument with worries abut job losses in China, not the U.S.  In doing so, they miss the point that whether increased productivity is or is not responsible for manufacturing job layoffs, the China toll extends much further--to top-wage U.S. jobs, including science and engineering, that were disproportionately hurt by unbalanced trade with China.  For example, more than a quarter of last year’s trade deficit with China ($68 billion) was due to advanced technology products, nearly six times the deficit in 2002.  Also, more than half (55.6 percent) of the jobs displaced by trade with China were in the top half of American wage earners.  Nearly a third (31 percent) of the jobs lost were among workers with a college degree.  A dramatic example is the loss of 200,000 scientists and engineers within the manufacturing sector, a 10.7 percent drop.  There’s also the simple fact of the mushrooming trade deficit itself: $256 billion in 2007.  In 1998, it was $56 billion.  A $200 billion jump should not be dismissed via convenient assertions that” the total U.S. trade deficit climbed marginally.” Regardless of what hungover math the Chamber chooses to employ, the bottom line is JOBS.  The latest jobs report this morning noted another 35,000 manufacturing jobs lost in June.  The Chamber may want to quibble with EPI’s findings, but some very stark truths are staring at them from Main Street America.  Too bad they don’t always seem to represent Main Street America’s interests.