The Obama Campaign has blasted Mitt Romney, saying the Republican presidential candidate has been talking tough on China these days, but his past record indicates that he has never stood up to the Asian giant.
The Obama Campaign yesterday rolled out a number of its top advisors to slam recent remarks of Romney in which the Republican said he would designate the Asian economic giant as "currency manipulator" on the first day of his presidency.
"Romney's hypocrisy apparently knows no ends. He claims he'll crack down on China, but he's never done that, and I don't think he ever will," said former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland in a joint conference call with Congressman Tim Ryan.
"The truth is, Romney has made a fortune investing in firms that specialise in shipping jobs to China and other low-wage countries. Romney's economic philosophy was simple, and it hasn't changed: profits over people, even if that means Americans lose their jobs," Strickland alleged, adding that Romney even led an investment into a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits.
Strickland said Romney still holds investments in Chinese companies, even though his advisers have falsely claimed that he has dumped all of his China investments.
"Recently, Romney has been talking tough on China, but he's never stood up to China, whether it's criticising the president for enforcing our trade laws against China, making personal investments in China or investing in companies that outsource to China," said Ben Labolt, spokesman of Obama campaign.
Romney dumped some of his personal investments in China not too long before he changed his tune on it, LaBolt alleged.
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"The fact is, he profited from investments and companies that pioneered outsourcing American jobs to China. So we're certainly not going to let an advertisement by the Romney campaign claiming that he'll take on China stand without a response," he asserted.
"If you take a look at all of Romney's tough talk on the issue of China -- and compare that to his record, somebody who's done nothing but profit from investments in companies that were pioneers in outsourcing American jobs to China, I think that that is the choice on the table," he said.
Strickland said the American people expect more than talk from a President.
"They expect action, like what President Obama has already done to hold China accountable and to stand up for American workers and to level the playing field. For example, he's challenged China's unfair trade practices that hurt American auto workers. And he's brought trade cases against China at twice the rate of his predecessor," he said.
"Romney knows that his claims that President Obama hasn't challenged China over unfair trade practices are false, because Romney actually attacked the president for doing just that," Strickland said.
"If you look through all of Romney's hypocrisy and blatant lies, one thing seems to be crystal clear: He has never stood up for American workers, and he never will," he said.
Romney, however, continued with his anti-China bashing during his campaign speech.
"China's been cheating; we're going to stop it and save and create more American jobs," he said addressing an election rally in Ohio.
"When a nation holds down the value of their currency, what it does is makes their goods much cheaper than they would otherwise be. China's currency is held down such that their products are priced well below what they'd be priced if their currency were floating on a market. As a result of that, their goods are cheaper, and people buy their products, and American companies selling those products go out of business. We can't let that go on year after year after year," he said.
"It's killing our jobs. And then when they take our patents and our designs and our know-hows and they counterfeit our goods, it kills jobs. This cannot go on. I will call China a currency manipulator and stop them in their tracks from killing American jobs," Romney said.