Why is the Trump administration really holding up MBTA train shells?
But the incident is another setback for a star-crossed project that's been hampered by delays, cost overruns, a pandemic, and geopolitical tensions.
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Massachusetts picked the Chinese company back in 2014 because it offered the low bid and promised to assemble the trains in Springfield with shells shipped from China. To then-governor Deval Patrick, the deal was a perfect two-fer, providing the T with bargain trains while creating several hundred blue-collar jobs in a part of the state that often feels overlooked by state transportation spending.
For the company, meanwhile, the deal was supposed to be its entree into the American market.
The company did
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President Trump slapped tariffs on imported
With that history, it's hard to take the slave labor concerns completely at face value. I don't mean to minimize the issue; obviously, if the company really did violate laws against importing slave-made products that would be a massive problem, and a reason for the state to bail on the contract immediately. But the way the administration and Congress have had it out for this company makes me wonder how genuine their concerns for its workers in China really are.
The trains are now years beyond schedule. There's undoubtedly plenty of blame to go around for that, and I don't mean to let the company off the hook.
But what if politicians hadn't spent so much energy trying to thwart CRRC? Why was the company that made something as socially useful as trains held to such a higher standard than ones making, say, smartphones?
I get the concerns about Chinese dumping — ie, using artificially low prices to gain market share at the expense of American firms. China has been accused of anticompetitive behavior when it comes to solar panels and other goods.
But the T's trains are being built by American workers, and with many American components. If US government pressure results in CRRC leaving the American market, the Chinese government will barely notice.
But a lot of people in Springfield will.
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Alan Wirzbicki is Globe deputy editor for editorials. He can be reached at
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