The trade deficit with China has cost Ohio more than 100,000 jobs since 2001, and the greatest losses have been in manufacturing, according to a study being issued today.

The report by the Economic Policy Institute, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., was timed for release days before China hosts the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The report's sponsors want to call attention to what they say has been a devastating trade relationship. The cost to the United States has been 2.3 million jobs lost and $19.4 billion in wages lost when those workers took lower-paying jobs, the study says.

Roughly two-thirds of the jobs lost were in manufacturing.

"Ohio's workers (and) Ohio's manufacturers are so often playing with one hand behind their backs," said U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who participated in a conference call about the report. "They shouldn't be playing under these rules. Athletes in next week's Olympics won't be playing by these rules."

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