In an interview this morning on KMOX-CBS radio in St. Louis, Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Executive Director Scott Paul explained that the U.S. auto parts sector comprises a very surprising 75% of the overall jobs in the U.S. automotive industry. 

That adds up to roughly 1.6 million jobs throughout the U.S., with more than 36,000 of them in Missouri.

These auto parts jobs are an important part of America's industrial economy.  Unfortunately, they are coming under fire due to heavily subsized competition from China.

In an op-ed in this morning's St. Louis Post Dispatch, Paul said that China is utilizing massive subsidies, and blocking market access, in order to undercut America's auto parts producers:

China is not penetrating our market the old-fashioned way, by outcompeting us. Instead, Beijing has pumped $27 billion of subsidies into its auto-parts sector, with an additional $10 billion planned. And through policies that have been documented in great detail by our own government and outside investigators, China blocks our exports of autos and auto parts while favoring its own industry, in direct violation of the commitments it made to free markets when it joined the World Trade Organization.

Paul says that this heavy susidization, combined with trade barriers, is helping China to seize market share in the U.S. 

What's needed to help the U.S. auto parts industry is for the president to launch a "trade action against China to stop its auto-parts subsidies" while also presing China to "open its market" in order to grow jobs in the U.S.

Click here to listen to the KMOX-CBS interview.

Click here to read the full op-ed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.