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Roundtable chief: Romney won’t rush to mark China as ‘currency manipulator’
The head of a group of chief executives does not expect Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to label China as a currency manipulator the first day he takes office.
John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, said Tuesday morning that the issue would be a "delicate challenge" for a Romney administration and that he would likely more closely examine the issue before moving forward.
"I personally don't think this will be the first thing they tackle because there are so many other urgent issues," Engler said, according to a video of a breakfast discussion at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., sponsored by Bloomberg and the Tampa Bay Host Committee.
Engler said Romney would have to go through a process that would probably make it impossible for the Treasury Department to designate China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office.
"We need to act because Russia is in the WTO," he said. "They've said they're not enforcing duties right away but that hangs there and if you're trying to do long-term deals you sort of need to get that resolved with a modernization of Jackson-Vanik."
Engler also called for more talks with Canada and Mexico to improve the North American Free Trade Agreement as well as to "do something creative" with countries like Brazil in Latin America to bring them into the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On the China front, Engler said while their currency has gradually appreciated in relationship to the dollar during the past few years, there is finally more international pressure, including from the cash-strapped European Union, to convince China to allow their currency to increase at a faster rate.
He also pointed out that currency manipulation in China is exacerbated by the sheer trade volume of flows back and forth to the nation.
Romney has criticized the Obama administration for not labeling China a currency manipulator and has said he would sign an executive order on the first day of his administration doing exactly that.
Instead, Engler said, the theft of intellectual property in China is "for many a much greater concern."
"If you lose a market because they took your product then that's a big deal."
On Monday, Lael Brainard, the Treasury Department's under secretary for International Affairs, who is heading to Moscow this week for trade talks, said U.S. officials will continue to press the Chinese government for a faster pace of appreciating currency, including "more progress on a market-orientated exchange rate."
The U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) has said that it is less concerned with the currency issue because, during the past several years, it has been proven that the exchange doesn't affect the trade balance between the two nations.
The group has said that deeming China a currency manipulator or Congress passing legislation to punish the nation would only demotivate Beijing from making structural economic reforms that are needed.
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