Ohio congressman blasts Romney on China trade

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) on Tuesday blasted Mitt Romney on China trade, arguing that there is no reason to believe the GOP presidential candidate will actually get tough with China.

The attack comes on a day when Romney campaigns in the key swing state of Ohio and as he is increasingly criticizing President Obama for not doing enough to reduce the massive U.S. trade deficit with China.

“Gov. Romney taking this tack against the president is laughable, quite frankly,” Ryan said, on a press call organized by the liberal Campaign for America’s Future.

Ryan said that Obama has, in fact, been tough on China, by slapping emergency tariffs on Chinese tire imports and steel tubes used for oil and gas production. He also lauded the president for announcing last week he will take China to a World Trade Organization panel on automobile subsidies.

He said that in contrast, Romney is on record opposing the tire tariffs.

Ryan is the author of a bill that would apply real penalties on Chinese imports for that nation's undervalued currency. He said Romney cannot be trusted to take on Chinese currency manipulation since he has been unwilling to persuade House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to take up his bill, which received more than 300 votes in the last Congress. A similar bill passed the Senate in this Congress.

“That would have been very helpful for the cause, but he didn’t do that,” he said.

Romney has vowed to name China a “currency manipulator” in an official administration report. That report, in the post-WTO era, is largely toothless, however, since it will just provoke more discussions with China and no real penalties.

Ryan admitted under questioning that he has been unable to get Obama to make that designation.

“We have been encouraging the administration to do that, and we will continue to do that,” he said.

Ryan said that Romney shifted to a tougher position on China in 2011 purely for political gain.

“It was a political decision from day one to win votes in Ohio,” he said.

Ryan said that trade, along with the auto bailout and a collective bargaining fight involving Gov. John Kasich, are the reasons Obama is up in the polls in Ohio compared to Romney at the moment.

---