{{US Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has insisted that he would declare China a “currency manipulator” after entering White House.<\/p>\n
This is what previous US presidents both Mr. Obama and George W. Bush resisted doing.}} <\/p>\n
Despite intense pressure from Congress, this has caused speculation over Romney\u2019s motivations. <\/p>\n
Is he serious, some international economists wonder, about carrying out an action they say could lead to a devastating tit-for-tat trade war and even, in the extreme, to an economic depression in the US if China reacted by no longer buying US Treasury debt?<\/p>\n
Some political analysts assume that Romney would simply forget his pledge once in office. <\/p>\n
Others say, \u201cDon\u2019t bet on it\u201d \u2013 but they also advise paying close attention to the caveats Romney usually throws in when he makes the \u201ccurrency manipulator\u201d pledge, as he did Tuesday when he said that \u201cif necessary\u201d he would move from the symbolic act of tagging China as a currency manipulator to a concrete step such as slapping tariffs on specific Chinese goods.<\/p>\n
Romney\u2019s advisers on trade policy say the point of designating China a currency manipulator would be to set a \u201cnew tone\u201d in US-China relations. <\/p>\n
Romney would be putting China on notice that it either stop its unfair trade practices \u2013 such as keeping its currency artificially low to make its goods cheaper on the export market \u2013 or face US action.<\/p>\n
Advisers such as domestic policy director Oren Cass underscore that naming China a currency manipulator would not automatically lead to punitive measures. The designation would trigger a US-China dialogue on the yuan\u2019s value.<\/p>\n
But it would be up to China, say Romney advisers, to avoid stiff US measures such as tariffs by taking actions such as letting its currency appreciate and addressing the theft of intellectual property.<\/p>\n
The risk, some international economists say, is that China would react in a very different way \u2013 for example, by beating the US to the punch and slapping tariffs on US goods, or by turning away from the US bond market.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration has followed a different approach than the one Romney advocates, pressing China through regular dialogue to allow its currency to appreciate. <\/p>\n
Obama said at Tuesday\u2019s debate that because his administration has \u201cpushed [China] hard\u201d the yuan has appreciated 11 percent during his presidency, which is correct.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration has also imposed some punitive trade measures. Obama cited his 2009 action slapping tariffs on Chinese tires, and claimed his approach overall has saved jobs at home and boosted US exports to China. <\/p>\n
But economists generally pan actions like the tire tariffs, saying the trade-off for what Obama claimed was 1,000 jobs saved is higher tire prices for the US consumer.<\/p>\n
Some political analysts say Romney\u2019s China-bashing serves another purpose: to deflect criticism from the Obama camp that Romney, the former Bain Capital CEO, built his wealth on outsourcing jobs to China. <\/p>\n
Obama followed that line of criticism Tuesday when he described Romney as \u201cthe last person who will be tough on China.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Secretary of State and Nixon-to-China architect Henry Kissinger may find, as he declared recently, that the campaign\u2019s China-bashing is \u201cdeplorable,\u201d but he and other voters can count on hearing more of it.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s final debate of the presidential campaign, to be held in Boca Raton, Fla., will focus on foreign policy and will have a segment dedicated to the implications of the rise of China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{US Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has insisted that he would declare China a “currency manipulator” after entering White House. This is what previous US presidents both Mr. Obama and George W. Bush resisted doing.}} Despite intense pressure from Congress, this has caused speculation over Romney\u2019s motivations. Is he serious, some international economists wonder, about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-3579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3579"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=3579"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=3579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}