The ideology of free trade implemented by NAFTA, CAFTA, and other free trade agreements are foundations for President Bush, Senator John McCain, and Senator and President Clinton.  Although not member to a formal free trade agreement, in 2000 and 2001,  trade with China accelerated when it was granted most favored nation status by the Bush Administration and admitted to the WTO.  The November 2007 Report To Congress by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission () highlights disturbing results of the US's trading relationship with China.
Since 2000, US exports to China grew from $16 to $55 billion by 2006 while China's exports to US grew from $100 to $287 billion in the same period.  This trade surplus has allowed China to invest and expand at a rapid rate, both militarily and industrially.  China's estimated defense budget has grown three fold since 1990 from an estimated $12 billion to an estimated $38 billion in 2004.  In the same period, the US defense budget grew just over 10% from $431 to $478 billion in 2005.  China's defense expenditures are now 6th behind the UK, France, Germany, and Japan.  China's expenditures on R&D has grown four fold from $50B in 1998 to over $200B in 2005 and now has state of the art research capabilities in several technologies.  Susan Hockfield, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a February 2008 speech expresses concern: 

"Yet China is pouring billions of dollars into building and staffing a swath of new universities, with the express goal of getting five of them into that top 20 ranking within 15 years.  Whether you believe they can achieve that vision in this time frame or not, it is a glimpse into a serious new competitive landscape."

The 2007 Report to Congress goes on to examine specific impacts on North Carolina, which has felt competition from China directly in the textiles and furniture industries.  From 1996 to 2006, manufacturing jobs in North Carolina dropped from 809,400 to 553,300.  In 2006 alone, of 120,000 jobs nation-wide that were eligible for federal programs because of import competition, 40,000 were in North Carolina.  The impact on workers in North Carolina has been significant.  42% of laid off North Carolina workers 55 and older found a job within a year earning 61% of their former manufacturing wages.  Another 33% of laid off workers were making less than 50% of their pervious wages.  One North Carolina study found 15% of 4,800 laid off workers from one company found jobs that had no benefits.  Between 2001 to 2006, North Carolina average annual wage fell, dropping it from 31st to 36th place in state rankings, at $32,234, 11% lower than the US average of $36,276.
China's admission to the WTO in 2001 had a direct impact on North Carolina textile industries since China would have remained under the Mutli-Fibre Arrangement of 1974 that limited China's export of textile to the US.  In the first quarter after China joined the WTO in 2001, textile and apparel exports grew 65% overall and as high as 1,500% for some categories, costing 44,000 US jobs and 11,000 North Carolina jobs.  China's industrial policy also provides 73 subsidies to its textile producers, enabling them to compete effectively with North Carolina textile firms. 

"Beijing goes to great lengths to hide the fact that many Chinese firms thought to be private are, in fact, SOEs [State Owned Enterprises].  Many companies in China whose stocks are traded on China’s exchanges are in reality SOEs in which the government keeps as much as a 75 percent stake",

says Mr. Frederick Jiang, manager of the Ivy Pacific Opportunities Fund.

In 1999, China's bedroom furniture exports to the US were only $200 million.  Between 2000 and 2005, 73 North Carolina furniture plants closed after China's 2001 WTO admission lowered tariffs on furniture, costing North Carolina 18,801 jobs.  By mid-2002, furniture exports to the US increased to $1.6B and China's share of the US bedroom furniture market grew from 15% to 53%.
To counter China's tactics, the US Department of Commerce levied anti-dumping duties in 2004 and temporary textile import quotas in 2005.  Federal assistance programs for dislocated workers and North Carolina's investment in Research Triangle Park offset the impacts of China's trade policy and prevented total devastation of North Carolina's economy.
University of California professor Peter Navarro examined major drivers of Chinese competitiveness.  He ranked the three most important drivers: currency manipulation of the renminbi; export subsidies though free energy, water, capital to underperforming industries; and counterfeiting and piracy. Other factors include: China's weak enforcement of IPR;  lack of enforcement by the Bush administration of trade laws and refusal to bring complaints;  and China's three decades of record economic growth has not translated into better lives for citizens so they save for basic survival needs, not the purchase of imported goods.
David Sirota recently discussed the Clinton administration's approval of the sale of Magnaquench in 1995 to two Chinese state-owned companies headed by husbands and  daughters of then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaopin.  This sale was approved by the Clinton administration despite objections since the magnets made by Magnaquench were used in our military's smart bombs. In Indiana, this led to the loss of 200 jobs when a Magnaquench plant closed. 
With China, the Clinton-Bush-McCain blind adherence to free trade has enabled a new military and industrial R&D power to appear on the horizon. Jobs were lost nationally with significant impacts in North Carolina and Indiana; the furniture and textile industries in North Carolina were decimated by Chinese-US trade policy.  China's strategy of importing jobs and exporting goods is far superior to the US strategy of exporting jobs and importing goods; China is experiencing record current account surpluses and foreign currency reservers and growing political, economic, and military power while the US experiences record deficits, debts, recession, and declining national security.  The US needs an intelligent approach to trade policy that benefits the nation as a whole, not a failed ideological belief in free trade that benefits the few.