Govt fails to designate China as currency manipulator
11 May '06
2 min read
On behalf of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) Executive Director Auggie Tantillo issued the following statement in response to the US Treasury's semi-annual report on foreign exchange that failed to designate China as a currency "manipulator."
Tantillo said, "Once again the US Treasury Department has kowtowed to China at the expense of the US manufacturing sector.
By failing to designate China as a manipulator in this report although its currency is artificially undervalued by as much as 40 percent, the United States comes off as a paper tiger unwilling to stand up for its domestic industrial sector.
While forcefully addressing the currency issue would only address one of the many ways China is unfairly subsidizing its manufacturing sector, it is the one issue where the subsidization is the most transparent.
If the Administration cannot pick the low-hanging fruit, how can US industry reasonably expect the US government competently to tackle less transparent but equally pressing unfair trading practices like non-performing loans and intellectual property theft?
The US trade deficit with China was $202 billion in 2005 and the US manufacturing sector has lost more than 2.8 million jobs since the beginning of 2001.
Rome is burning. How much longer will the US government fiddle while U.S. industry bleeds?
The US government's emphasis on dialogue with China is not enough.
US industry needs action now. We cannot afford to wait while heavily-subsidized Chinese industries gobble up more and more of our market share on a daily basis.
marketing@alchempro.com
