President Obama’s campaign has a new ad that claims Mitt Romney “made a fortune” outsourcing U.S. jobs to China and other nations during his tenure at Bain Capital, a spot that arrives as Obama is touting administration efforts to challenge China on trade policy.
“Mitt Romney is not the solution. He is the problem,” the ad states.
The
30-second spot opens with a clip of Romney, at a GOP primary debate last October, vowing to get tough with China.
“The Chinese are smiling all the way to the bank, taking our jobs, and taking a lot of our future, and I’m not willing to let that happen,” Romney said, and pledged to go after China on currency manipulation.
But then the ad’s narrator proclaims that Romney “made a fortune letting it happen.”
The spot highlights a June Washington Post story that reported that Bain, the private equity firm Romney once helmed, owned companies that were “pioneers” in shipping work from the U.S. to other countries.
Romney’s campaign has pushed back against the Post account, and on Saturday the presumptive GOP nominee attacked Obama’s new ad.
“If the Obama team would spend half as much effort on the economy as they do creating false attacks, maybe the middle class would be better off. But the American people have been hurt enough by this weak President's failed policies and won’t let him deceive his way to a second term,” Romney’s campaign said.
Obama is seeking to show that he’s fighting to preserve U.S. jobs by challenging Chinese trade practices that administration officials call unfair.
On Thursday, administration officials said they will ask China to enter dispute settlement negotiations at the World Trade Organization over Chinese tariffs on imports of U.S. autos, the first step in legal action.
Obama highlighted the action while on a campaign swing through Ohio, a state where the auto industry is prominent.
The president, at a July 5 campaign speech, said the administration would “hold China accountable for unfair trade practices that harm American automakers.”
