not too good, U.S. House Passes Bill to Impose Tariffs on Chinese Goods The House of Representatives sent a unusually confrontational signal to the Chinese leadership on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to give President Obama the authority to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports — more than $300 billion this year — in retaliation for Beijing’s refusal to revalue its currency.
The vote was 348 to 79.
The bill is unlikely to become law because the prospects for Senate approval are dim.
Nonetheless, the action was intended to hand President Obama additional leverage in what has become a major flashpoint between the world’s two largest economies. While tariffs have been slapped on specific products, from steel to tires, because of evidence of unfair export subsidies, the threat to put sizable tariffs on a country’s entire line exports to the United States is highly unusual — and, some argue, of dubious legality under international trade law. It reflects both election-year politics over jobs and huge frustration over unfulfilled promises by China to allow its currency to rise in value, which would make Chinese goods less competitive in the United States.
The administration has been of two minds about the legislation. It has often used the rising public anger over China’s trade advantage to argue to Chinese leaders that the United States would no longer tolerate deliberate currency manipulation. That was a point Mr. Obama made repeatedly last week in a two-hour-long meeting with Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister.
But in conversations with Congress, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and other officials have warned of the danger of touching off a trade war, in which China blocks American goods in retaliation — a tit-for-tat feud that could hurt both economies.
The risks go beyond trade. President Obama is pressing China for help on cutting exports to Iran, managing a dangerous leadership transition in North Korea and coming to some kind of accord on curbing carbon outputs that contribute to global warming. He is also coming up with what one senior administration official called “new rules of the road” over disputed maritime territory.
But in Beijing, and on Capitol Hill, all that has pales in comparison to the currency dispute, which is often portrayed in the Chinese press as an effort to curb China’s growth, and thus its power. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/business/30currency.html?src=mv
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