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Obama urges China to cut currency link
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-03-19 10:45
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 President Barack Obama speaks at the Export-Import Bank's Annual Conference in Washington, Thursday, March 11, 2010.?[Agencies] |
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration accused China on Thursday, March 11 of maintaining currency policies that cost millions of US jobs, an attack that comes amid a growing willingness to confront and even antagonize the Asian power.
The new approach is being spurred, in part, by US lawmakers' complaints that Obama's efforts to win Chinese cooperation have failed. Those lawmakers are facing November elections and are increasingly attacking China as a way to win votes from Americans worried about jobs.
Obama himself led the charge on currency. He used a speech to the Export-Import Bank conference to push for China to change its currency policy, saying Chinese movement "to a more market-oriented exchange rate" is needed to help efforts to rebalance the global economy.
The Obama administration wants China to allow its currency, the yuan, to rise in value against the dollar. American manufacturers say China unfairly manipulates its currency by holding down the yuan's value to gain trade advantages over the United States.
Wang Baodong, spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said China's economic and currency policies are "responsible and beneficial to the common interests of our two countries, particularly against the background of jointly facing up to the financial crisis."
Beijing has held the yuan steady against the dollar for 18 months to help Chinese exporters but is under pressure from Washington and other trading partners who say it is swelling China's trade surplus.
Obama also said in his speech that countries with external surpluses "need to boost consumption and domestic demand."
China reported on March 10?that its exports rose in February by 45.7 percent from a year earlier.
Washington and Beijing also are embroiled in disputes over access to each other's markets for tires, steel and other goods.
