Obama: Romney Can’t Stand Up To China After Outsourcing Jobs There

[highplainsdem]

Source: TPM

President Obama will attack Mitt Romney's credibility on the issue of trade with China in a campaign speech Monday in Ohio, where he plans to announce a new trade enforcement case against China.

“Now, I understand my opponent has been running around Ohio claiming he’s going to roll up his sleeves and take the fight to China," Obama will say in Cincinatti, according to prepared remarks. "But here’s the thing: His experience has been owning companies that were called ‘pioneers’ in the business of outsourcing jobs to countries like China. Pioneers! Ohio, you can’t stand up to China when all you’ve done is send them our jobs."

“You can talk a good game, or you can play one – and my experience has been waking up every single day doing everything I can to give American workers a fair shot in the global economy … When Gov. Romney said stopping an unfair surge in Chinese tires would be bad for our workers, we did it anyway – and we got over 1,000 Americans back to work."

-snip-

Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-romney-cant-stand-up-to-china-after

[skeewee08]

1. That's my President

[liberal N proud]

2. That is the retort I wanted to hear from our President

Since seeing those ads run claiming Obama is weak with China, I have been asking myself that same question.

Thank you Mr. President!

[goclark]

3. Sock it to um Ms. President!

[Cha]

11. It's Sickening...and the corporatemediaWhores

are helping them cover up their incompetence too many times. Don't want to miss out on that revenue from their campaign ads.

[PearliePoo2]

5. Good!!! Tell it Prez!

He needs to hammer this home every single day. Every day!
RMoney bought entire FACTORIES in fucking China!

[Major Nikon]

6. Rmoney is on the ropes and his eyes are rolling back in his empty head

I can't wait for the knockout punch and I don't know what it is, but it's coming.

[jsr]

7. Good. Hit him hard and often on China.

[VotePedia]

8. China ows US!

No one can stand up to china! china essentially owns the usa thew bonds... in fact, Ben Bernanke is having a garage sell right now, something like $.63 of all dollar is borrowed.... most of that is from china

[Cha]

12. Well President Obama is.

[leftyohiolib]

15. if we go down so do they b/c they own so much of our debt. so they wont try that

[pampango]

16. Krugman: Rob Portman lying about China financing our deficit

Ah. Let’s give thanks to Rob Portman, who offered a nice break from all the lies in Tampa, and instead offered us some good old-fashioned bad macroeconomics. Obama won’t take on China, Portman said, because

Obama could not run up his record trillion dollar deficits if the Chinese did not buy our bonds to finance them

How is it possible that we’re borrowing much less from foreigners when the government deficit has gone up so much? The answer is that the private sector is deleveraging, having moved into massive surplus as consumers try to pay down debt and corporations hold back on investment in the face of weak consumer demand. All those government deficits have only partly offset this move, so that overall national borrowing from overseas is down, not up.

So who’s actually financing the US budget deficit? The US private sector. We don’t need Chinese bond purchases, and if anything we’re the ones with the power, since we don’t need their money and they have a lot to lose. In fact, we don’t want them to buy our bonds; better to have a weaker dollar (a point that the Japanese actually get.)

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/fear-of-china-syndrome/

[Major Nikon]

17. I've never subscribed to that line of thought

China no more owns the US than anyone else who cares to buy a T-bill or savings bond. There is absolutely no claim to anything equitable involved and only the promise of the US to repay. If anything, carrying such massive amounts of debt hitches their wagon to our horses rather than the other way around. It's also not as if China or anyone else has any better options. They can't invest in their own country any more than they already are and there still aren't any other countries which can accept such large obligations.

[JDPriestly]

19. And if the dollar fell, China would lose its investment in our bonds.

Thanks to its creditor status, China is a partner in economic terms.

The USA is one of the largest if not the largest of China's trade partners. Our buyers and our debts enable the Chinese to develop their economy. Our role as China's customer is just as important to them as their investment in our treasury bonds.

But we are in a good position to demand fairness from China with regard to jobs and their imports to us. The US and Canada are pretty much the biggest single language market anywhere that has for the most part one government and one set of regulations (say with regard to product specs). China can sell to Europe, but it has to package things very differently for sale in different European countries. It has to deal with so many languages and cultures when it sells to Europe.

There is no place on earth as willing to waste money on cheap Chinese trinkets and plastic toys as the US.

We have no reason to fear China. To the contrary, we have good reason to expect fair dealing from China.

The reason that our bonds are so popular as an investment is that our government and economy are relatively stable -- and as I said -- that we are an enormous, homogenous and relatively wealthy market.

It's not that we don't have to worry. It's that we should not be intimidated. The Chinese do not play fair. We all know that. In fact, if you want to know how the Chinese operate in business, ask Indonesians. Obama knows precisely with what and whom he is dealing when it comes to the Chinese. I trust Obama to be get the right balance to achieve results in diplomacy and foreign relations.

Romney is like a bull in a china shop when it comes to foreign relations and diplomacy. He just does not have the personality for it. He is downright rude on occasion, and he has an arrogance that is offensive.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. In that case, neither candidate can stand up to India

If outsourcing disqualifies a candidate from standing up, so should the granting of H1B visas.

Sauce for the goose.

[Cha]

13. We're talking about China..and Romney is a Pioneer in

outsourcing companies to China while saying PBO won't stand up to them.

It's Romney's MF HYPOCRISY.

[hamsterjill]

10. I like it!

I like that Obama is giving it back to Mitt in this manner. I can't wait for the debates.

[Gregorian]

14. That might even pass through skulls of Repulican thickness.

[George II]

18. Go Barack! Hit him in his "bread basket" - outsourcing AMERICAN jobs!!

[cleduc]

20. Romney made the crack

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/17/politics/campaign-wrap/index.html?hpt=po_c1

"The president may think that announcing new trade lawsuits less than two months from the election will distract from his record, but American businesses and workers struggling on an uneven playing field know better," Romney told the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

In an earlier statement, Romney said Obama "has spent 43 months failing to confront China's unfair trade practices."

Obama claimed:

"We've brought more trade cases against China in one term than the previous administration did in two -- and every case we've brought that's been decided, we've won," Obama continued in Cincinnati, adding that the subsidies being challenged "directly harm working men and women on the assembly line in Ohio and Michigan and across the Midwest."

So I checked:
Here's the cases they brought that I could find:
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds440_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds431_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds427_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds419_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds414_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds413_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds394_e.htm

And here's the Bush cases they followed through on
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds387_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds363_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds362_e.htm
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds340_e.htm

I think Bush got two decisions in his favor - not many
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_by_country_e.htm

So the Romney suggestion that Obama just started going after China just before the election is simply another Romney lie.

[George II]

21. The problem is that when Romney lies, the electorate is too lazy to research if it's a lie...

....especially those that are already leaning to the right. They're just downright LAZY and uninformed.

[desertduck]

22. And it needs to be said again & again & again....nt