"Jobs? Jobs? Americans don need no steenkin jobs."
Posted on 06/14/2007 4:43:45 AM PDT by familyop
WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush's administration declined to cite China as a manipulator of currency values to gain unfair trade advantages and rejected a request by U.S. lawmakers to file a trade case against China on the issue.
The Bush administration's actions Wednesday provoked an outcry from members of the U.S. Congress who said America's soaring trade deficit with China had cost thousands of manufacturing jobs and deserved a much tougher response on the part of the administration to crack down on unfair Chinese trade practices.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is leading the Bush administration's effort to deal with a soaring trade deficit with China, issued his department's semiannual report on Wednesday that found China does not meet the technical requirements for being labeled a currency manipulator.
As in past reports, the Bush administration said the Chinese government was moving too slowly to implement various economic reforms to deal with a widening trade gap with the United States.
The report contended that the pace the Chinese currency is being allowed to rise is "much too slow and should be quickened.''
Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab announced late Wednesday that she was rejecting a petition filed in May by a bipartisan group of 42 members of the House of Representatives asking the administration to bring a trade case against China before the World Trade Organization.
Schwab noted that the Bush administration has brought four WTO cases against China in the past 15 months but did not feel a case on the currency issue would be appropriate.
It marked the third time the administration has turned down requests for a currency case.
Major members of Congress denounced the administration's failure to take action against China and said they were introducing legislation that would remove roadblocks in current law to pursuing a tougher line.
Anger in Congress has been growing as America's trade deficit has soared to record levels.
Sens. Charles Schumer, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, who last year pushed legislation that would penalize China by imposing 27.5 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports, said Wednesday they were introducing a revised bill that would change the description of the infraction from currency manipulation to "fundamentally misaligned currency for priority action.''
The measure, which had the key backing of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, would set up a schedule of escalating punitive actions against countries designated as having priority misaligned currencies.
Those actions would include using the amount that a currency is undervalued in figuring penalty tariffs to impose on the designated country in dumping cases, where countries are found to be selling products in the U.S. market at below fair value.
The legislation would also withhold U.S. votes for loans any designated country might be seeking from the World Bank or other international lending institutions.
It would require the administration to bring a case against a designated country before the World Trade Organization one year after the priority designation if the currency was still undervalued.
"This breakthrough proposal is like nothing else because it's tough, wide-reaching and WTO-compliant,'' Schumer said.
"The previous legislation got China's attention. The purpose of this legislation is to force change.''
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the panel, said Wednesday they were introducing their own proposal that would direct the administration to pursue currency cases against countries before the IMF and the WTO.
Their legislation does not include as extensive a list of sanctions for the failure to comply.
American manufacturers contend that China is undervaluing its currency by as much as 40 percent.
That has been a boon for U.S. consumers, providing them with cheaper-priced Chinese imports, but it has driven the U.S.-China trade gap to an all-time high of $232.6 billion (euro175 billion), one-third of America's record deficit of $758.5 billion (euro570.8 billion) last year.
The finding by the administration had been expected.
Paulson has launched a series of twice-a-year, high-level meetings with top Chinese officials hoping to convince them that moving more quickly to revalue their currency is in their best economic interests.
The effort is also an attempt by the administration to head off a protectionist backlash in Congress, where lawmakers are feeling increasing heat because of the trade deficits and the loss of more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since 2000.
...related.
China says U.S. remarks on its military irresponsible
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1849965/posts
Don’t blame the WH. They know what Wall St. knows: China holds all the cards. If China were to get pissed off and dump our bonds, we would be in serious trouble.
"Jobs? Jobs? Americans don need no steenkin jobs."
That’s true. The WH only does what its favored constituents tell it to do. And when real trouble comes from China, we’ll remember our superiors who pay for those lobbies.
Now who would do those lost jobs? More illegals?
America seems to know which fights not to pick.
How would that work, exactly? The Chinese dump the share of bonds they own, at a terrible cost to themselves (and the U.S.) when interest rates rise as a result?
"America's trade deficit has soared to record levels."
It's still huge, but things are improving slowly. US exports are up.
The amount of U.S. goods and services sold to foreign countries increased in April by $247 million, to $129.5 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday; the level of imports fell by $3.6 billion, to $188 billion.
Those shifts put the trade deficit at $58.5 billion for the month - $3.9 billion smaller than it was in March.
To be sure, the trade deficit is still huge. For January through April, it was a cumulative $235.3 billion. But it is growing less rapidly, even after inflation is taken into account. In real terms, the deficit for the first four months of the year fell by 3 percent compared with the period last year.
You are forgetting that China has a massive cash surplus to fall back upon. We do not. Our spendthrift economy is more vulnerable than it seems.
So connect the dots . . . the Chinese will take a terrible hit and pay for it with the cash reserves they already pay to maintain at an articificially-level? Bear in mind that the Treasury notes are denominated in dollars.
If Mexico and China got in a war, Bush would have to just hide in a closet
Not long I would say. The breakup is coming sooner rather than later though. Im sure we will see a few states make a half-hearted attempt to secede from the union but the real fight is yet to come.
In any event, I think that the United States now has less than 5 years true lifespan left and by the year 2020 will no longer exist as it is today.
This businessman was concerned that Nixon had been SAYING that he was cooling to the idea of an opening to Red China to quell the uprising within the then very much more America-First rank and file Republican Party.
As reported years later, Nixon told the businessman
“DON’T LISTEN TO WHAT WE SAY: WATCH WHAT WE DO!"
AS YOU READ THIS, IT APPEARS THAT BUSH, PELOSI AND OTHERS ARE WELL DOWN THE ROAD TO USING THIS PAGE FROM THE NIXON PLAYBOOK!
IT APPEARS THAT DUBYA -- LIKE NIXON (and numerous others) BEFORE HIM --IS NOW “DOING” US (IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE).
Look, America – the IDEA not the PLACE – can only continue to exist if we heed the advice of the founding fathers (paraphrased here in the current vernacular for residents of Rio Linda), to wit:
“The Founding Fathers have determined that failure to WATCH politicians – ALL POLITICIANS (even those you may worship!) – is dangerous to the security of this nation and to the freedoms we paid such a heavy price to TRY to leave you and your children.”
“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path to destruction.”
That from the radical right-wing, tinfoil hat wearing wacko, Thomas Jefferson.
We are in real trouble now. China makes EVERYTHING. It has become the cornerstone of our economy. We need an immediate ban on any food products and most medicines and slap tariffs on their other products. I’m all for free trade but we are losing our ability to make the basic necessities of life.
Kind of makes me glad I’m an old fart. Won’t have to live too long under the New Order.
What little support Bush had is gone.
See post 3. Wanna talk about job losses? If post 3 happened, we’d see LOTS of them.
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