Wednesday, September 19, 2012

An Odd Silence on China Currency

Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama have traded superheated barbs in the past week over who would be tougher on China's trade practices, but neither has tried to take advantage of a Senate-passed currency manipulation bill that has been sitting on the House calendar for almost a year.
Instead, Romney has tried to outflank Obama by vowing to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in the Oval Office, and Obama has parried by blasting Romney's record on outsourcing and touting his own record of filing enforcement actions against China, including one this week on auto parts subsidies.
But the bipartisan China currency bill, which passed the Senate last October and could lead to steep tariffs on Chinese goods, remains bottled up by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) despite having more than enough co-sponsors to pass - and that's where it's likely to stay.
In an unusual, de facto alliance, the White House, top House Republicans and an array of powerful business interests - including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ?- think launching a broad-scale assault on China's currency policies is not worth the risk of a full-blown trade war.
Like Romney this year, then-Sen. Obama said he would go to "the mat" on the issue five years ago. And despite his rhetoric, Romney so far has not called on Boehner to put the bill up for a vote.

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/58_22/An-Odd-Silence-On-China-Currency-217673-1.html?pos=hftxt

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