Some lawmakers, like outgoing Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have long said such tariffs were necessary to compete with Chinese-made products. The Chinese government has been known to skirt international trade rules by heavily subsidizing certain industries, allowing companies to produce goods at below-market prices.

“If those jobs go to China, the jobs are going to be made with cheap labor, sometimes slave labor, sometimes child labor, but always cheap labor, and they’re going to be made with no environmental protection,” Brown said while visiting a steel plant in Zanesville, Ohio on Oct. 22.

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