Political Quotes

“What do they tell us? There was a general consensus among the witnesses--they held 2 days of hearings--that China remains in violation of its WTO obligations in a number of areas impacting vital U.S. economic interests: It has become increasingly clear that China is not meeting key commitments it made when joining the WTO and that our trade laws have to date been insufficient in addressing these problems. They lay out the problems: China currency manipulation, intellectual property theft; treating China as a nonmarket economy; lack of enforcement of U.S. trade remedies that are on the books; China subsidies to businesses that are in violation to WTO. We have had a very tepid response to China's cheating across the board and we are paying a huge price. Many Americans are losing jobs not because they are being outworked, or because the Chinese are smarter, but because they are being cheated out of their jobs. One way is that the Chinese have taken the value of their currency and artificially suppressed it, creating a discount on every product coming out of China to the detriment of American manufacturing and the world community at large, and all we do is talk to China. A lot of people are depending on us to do something about China in a constructive fashion. Is this the best way to have done it? No. This is the only way I know of, after 2 years, to get anybody's attention, our attention or China's attention.”