Joe Lieberman: “I rise to introduce a bill, proposing we enact the Fair Currency Enforcement Act of 2005. The present legislation…”

“I rise to introduce a bill, proposing we enact the Fair Currency Enforcement Act of 2005. The present legislation addresses the practice of some governments to intervene aggressively in currency markets, or to peg their currencies at a fixed--artificially low--exchange rate, thus subsidizing their export sales and raising price barriers to imports from the United States. I introduced similar legislation last Congress, yet the problem remains unsolved. In recent years, particularly China has been pressed to float their currency upward. Specifically, the Europeans, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements have put pressure on the Chinese to at a minimum repeg their currency to a higher dollar value. The Administration has talked about this idea, but has been ineffective. As a consequence there has been no movement on the part of the Chinese. As a result of the heavy dollar buying, the Asian Central banks have allowed their foreign-exchange reserves to swell from less than $800 billion at the start of 1999 to over $1.5 trillion in 2003. This legislation proposes that our Administration promptly open negotiations with the four Asian countries that exemplify this practice, with the intent to put a stop to it.”