Problem SOLVED! Poisonous Chinese Toys

The U.S. trade deficit with China is large and well documented.  American legislators have on more than one occasion accused the Chinese of artificially inflating the yuan such that the prices of their exported goods will be lessened, thus giving an advantage to Chinese goods in the world market while maintaining a poor and subjugate labor force.  They have even gone as far as recommending sanctions against the Chinese.  For what?  For improving the quality of life for the average American consumer?  For inflating the purchasing power of the American dollar on Chinese products?

Then, in the past few months, a new scandal has further rocked trade relations:  a series of massive toy recalls for, among other things, the contamination of toys with lead paint.  Again, there are many who would impose sanctions of some sort as functional reprimand against the Chinese, who were gracious enough to make all of our children's toys.  Sanctions would only serve to make our imported goods more expensive, and we should not be expected to sacrifice the way of life for 300 million people for the well-being of several hundred thousand children.  And again, we should not blame the Chinese, who endeavor only to supply our country with affordable but unnecessary items.  Besides, ultimately, toys are not the problem.  Sick children are the problem.

Certainly, there are some who will say that the children are sickened by the toys, but I fear that these people have no sense of personal responsibility.  Lead is an abundant element on this planet.  It isn't the responsibility of the Chinese to keep it away from our children.  If children are so hurt by lead-contaminated toys, then children should take measures to avoid those toys.  Just as Philip Morris can not be blamed for the hopeless addictions of cigarette smokers, Chinese toy factories can not be blamed for American children's blatant disregard for their own health in their relentless pursuit of toys.

It is the children's fault.  When drug-addled ravers drink too much water and die of hyper-hydration, no legislative calls go up for sanctions against Aquafina.  In the same sense, no action against Chinese toy manufacturers is necessary in reaction to the negligence of the children themselves.  Children do not need toys.  Children choose toys.  And if children can not be held accountable for the toys they choose, than neither should we hold anyone else at fault.

Simply assigning blame, though, does not solve the problem.  These children who have through their own choices tainted themselves with lead will exhibit a series of health and behavioral problems related to their mistake.  They may experience a noticeable drop in IQ.  They may have trouble paying attention or begin to act out.  And on the strictly medical side, they may become anemic, lose their hair, suffer with the full or partial failure of their kidneys or even experience a weakened immune system due to damage to their bone marrow.  All of these medical problems can get expensive, and, though children seem perfectly capable of selecting damaging toys for themselves, they generally do not have a developed enough sense of social responsibility to support themselves with a job, thus leaving the medical bills to their parents or, even worse, to the taxpayers.

That is where my solution comes in, and it is a solution that should be found just, appropriate and amicable to all involved parties.  It is also almost startlingly simple:  we simply foot the bill to ship the damaged children overseas to China, where they will work in a factory to support themselves and to cover the costs of whatever medical bills accrued due to their toy-related mishaps.  Since airfare is far too great a cost to incur on the public, the children will be shipped via large crates in steerage, and the crates will be nailed shut to protect against what could be the unfortunate loss of children in transit.

Children are well-known to be adept at acclimating and adapting, so -- even though their intelligence may be damaged by lead poisoning -- they should have no problems picking up enough of the local language and customs to excel in simple industrial settings.  Given enough repetitions, the average tainted child could be a productive member of, for instance, an injection molding facility within a month of landfall.

The benefits of such a plan are numerous and somewhat self-evident, though I will enumerate them for you anyway.  First and most directly, the tainted kids will no longer fall under the financial jurisdiction of their parents, allowing them a wholly more luxurious lifestyle.  If the parents were previously unable to pay for the medical care of these children, then that medical care can also be subtracted from the nation's bottom line.  And finally, the influx of even more cheap labor into the Chinese workforce will drive the cost of their goods down even further, resulting in still greater benefits in the form of a lower cost of living for the average American consumer.  It is a rare double-win.  Consider the problem solved.