In the absence of other factors, in any trade, the buyer wants to pay as little as possible, and the seller wants to charger as much as possible. In this global world we inhabit, that does indeed mean that if the Chinese are willing to pay more than you are, then "your" suppliers will take dollars from the man in China over the dollars in your pocket.
Thats called a free market economy.
Globally, historically, it usually works in the USAs favour, as the USA is a "rich" country, and could outspend everyone else to get what it wanted. However, China has a really, really, really big pile of USD (the thick end of a trillion bucks) it has no particular use for, so China can afford to outspend the USA on raw materials.
China has gone from being no-where on the international resource consumption ladder to being on the top rung for many things, and the second rung (generally one rung below the USA) for just about everything else.
You get to take a margin squeeze, or put your prices up, or become financially astute and get into futures, as Julie has suggested several times. Futures wont solve the problem long term, but it may just enable you to spank your competitors to the point of bankruptcy in the medium term.
