Obama Administration Won't Stand-up to China

From One News Now.com
By Jim Brown

A former Republican presidential candidate says the Obama administration, just like the Bush administration, is attempting to "soft-pedal" a concerted Chinese effort to transplant the industrial base of the United States into China.

Last week the Treasury Department claimed in a report to Congress that no major U.S. trade partner, including China, had manipulated its exchange rate to gain an unfair competitive advantage. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has apparently backtracked from testimony he gave in January during his Senate confirmation hearing, when he claimed China manipulated its currency.

Former Republican presidential candidate and California Congressman Duncan Hunter says the Obama administration is taking the easy way out with communist China, just as the Bush administration did.

"When President Bush's financial leadership went to China, at one point they had stated that this manipulation of the currency amounted to a subsidy, which is exactly what it is because it enables them to undersell and undercut American products by artificially lowering their currency," he notes. "When the speech was actually given in China, the word 'subsidy' had been removed by the American bureaucrats. They didn't want to anger the Chinese because they hold such a massive portion of the Americans' debt."

Hunter says the Treasury Department's stance on China is a "classic example" of an administration that talked tough on China when running for office, but since assuming office has not been able to "stand up" to the Chinese.

Note: During the 2008 Presidential campaign Duncan Hunter was the only candidate outlining the problems with China and how to solve them by leveling the trading field on American produced goods. -red