China and US Trade by Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE from http://www.caglecartoons.com # 84545
The Obama administration is set to file a trade complaint against China because of Chinese import duties on cars assembled in America. Everyone here knows that I am not the biggest fan of Obama but on this he deserves at least some credit, unfortunately the administration won’t do more. According to administration officials the WTO complaint is meant to get China to “play by the rules”. Like I said at least give Obama some credit for trying but in reality this will have little effect.
Currently China is a bad trade partner because it does things like keeping their currency artificially low so exports to America are cheaper than what they should be. They also do not give fair access to the Chinese market. For example, China requires US automakers to partner with a Chinese company in order to sell cars there. In essence the US automakers are training their future competitors. Does that sound like free trade to you? Oh, did we also fail to mention that the Chinese are always stealing intellectual property from western companies, guess who ends up paying for this in the end, the American consumer. Although it is nice to see somebody actually call the Chinese out with a WTO complaint realistically it does not even begin to address our dangerously dysfunctional trade relationship China. Unfortunately neither Obama or Romney have articulated a vision on improving our trade relations with China, here is to hoping that will soon change.
sickunclesam 