The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) brings its 2010 "Keep it Made in America" Town Hall Tour to a close tonight in Wausau, Wisconsin.

We're live-blogging the event (below), but you can watch a LIVE Webcast instead simply by clicking here.

As the delicious fish fry dinner ends, AAM Executive Director Scott Paul welcomes the crowd and explains that tonight is part of a national tour AAM has undertaken to point out that manufacturing is a key part of the U.S. economy. 

Paul says that if the U.S. wants to create jobs, what's needed is to rebuild a key driver of the economy, which is manufacturing.

Paul says that Wisconsin has lost thousands of paper industry jobs to China, and that workers in Wisconsin understand the difficult times facing them.  [AAM recently published a study showing that paper producer in China receive massive governmental subsidies, which have allowed them to take market share from U.S. paper producers].

Paul introduces a number of candidates running for office in Wisconsin:

Julie Lassa, a Democratic candidate for the 7th Congressional WI District: End China's currency manipulation. Central WI is poised to take the lead in clean energy mfg.

Rob Taylor, Constitution Party candidate for U.S. Senate, on the mfg crisis: "We need to quit waiting for Superman to show up." Our military uniforms must be made in the USA in their entirety.

Ron Johnson, Republican candidate for Senate: Government should buy American-made products to maximize investments. "If we had free and fair trade, American workers could succeed anywhere."

Wisconsin State Senator Russ Decker (D-29th District), emphasizes the importance of paper mills and the jobs that depend on manufacturing.

Wausau native Lori Wallach of Global Trade Watch speaks on behalf of WI Senate candidate Russ Feingold.

A reminder: you can watch a LIVE Webcast of this town hall simply by clicking here.

AAM's Scott Paul introduces a panel discussion that includes Andy Gussert, National Director of the Citizens Trade Campaign; Phil Neuenfeldt, President, Wisconsin State AFL-CIO; Mike Roemerman, Human Resources Director for New Page Corporation; Dr. Gerry Ring, Professor and Chair of the Paper Science and Engineering Department, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.

Paul talkes about the ongoing problems of Wisconsin's paper industry.  We need to get our trade policies right when dealing with China.

Gussert agrees, points to millions of U.S. jobs lost due to unfair trade with China.

-If you speed on the highway, you don't need to ask the gov't to enforce the law. Yet, we need to do that with trade laws.   We need to enforce trade laws.