James Bacchus, “A Trade War With Zero Currency”

A Trade War With Zero Currency, Wall Street Journal
July 12, 2010
James Bacchus

In the past, U.S. congressional threats to slap tariffs on Chinese imports in retaliation for the perceived trade effects of Chinese currency practices were only threats. Now, for the first time, there is a real chance these threats could lead to action.

That’s because the debate in America is changing. Mainstream politicians, the media and even businesspeople are starting to call for action against Beijing. Earlier this month, Andy Grove, former chairman and chief executive of Intel, said the U.S. should “levy an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. If the result is a trade war, treat it like other trade wars—fight to win.” He is far from alone in urging such action.

Thus, there’s growing support in Washington for punitive legislation sponsored by Senator Charles Schumer. The New York Democrat wants to change U.S. law to permit additional tariffs to be applied to Chinese imports to offset the “subsidy” provided by the yuan’s alleged undervaluation. The level of those tariffs could exceed many billions of dollars annually.

Evidently, Senator Schumer has been persuaded that this action would somehow be consistent with U.S. obligations to China under the international rules on which both countries have agreed as members of the World Trade Organization. It is not at all clear that it would be.

Chinese currency practices benefit Chinese producers generally. To fit the definition of a “subsidy” under WTO rules, a governmental action must take the form of a “financial contribution” that, unless conditioned on exports or on the use of domestic over imported goods, must also be “specific” to “certain enterprises.” Successfully defending the notion that Chinese currency practices meet this definition would be difficult, to say the least, in WTO dispute settlement, where there is no precedent for such an assertion or such a ruling.

But given that America is in the middle of a “jobless” recovery, where five unemployed Americans are still seeking work for every one job available, such a move could prove popular. Few members of Congress seeking re-election in November are likely to be dissuaded from voting for such legislation because it may be inconsistent with international law. They would only see the immediate political benefit.

Nor are they likely to be deterred by the possibility of losing a WTO case to China a year or two from now. By that point, they would already be re-elected. Never mind the extensive and expensive trade sanctions that could later be applied lawfully by China if the U.S. lost at the WTO and refused to comply with the verdict.

To his credit, President Barack Obama has refrained from indulging in inflammatory rhetoric or taking precipitous action on the currency issue. Last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner declined to name China a currency manipulator under U.S. law. Clearly, the Obama administration continues to prefer quiet diplomacy to confrontation as the best course for resolving the currency dispute.

The Chinese government no doubt wants to defuse the situation, too. On the eve of last month’s Group of 20 meeting, Beijing announced it would drop the yuan’s peg to the dollar and let the value of its currency rise. This cooled the heat on China at the summit in Toronto, but it unfortunately didn’t lower the rising political temperature in Washington.

That’s partly because China simultaneously assured its own exporters that the value of the yuan will rise only gradually. Since the announcement, the yuan-dollar exchange rate has hardly budged. Mr. Geithner recently noted he would track “how far and how fast” the value of the yuan rises.

Despite his best intentions, Mr. Obama may not have the votes in Congress to stop the Schumer bill. Many Americans believe the yuan’s weakness makes Chinese exports to the U.S. cheaper and U.S. exports to China more expensive, robbing America of millions of jobs and contributing to America’s large trade deficit with China. It would be hard for the president to veto such a popular piece of legislation in the midst of an election campaign when his party’s continuing control of Congress is in dire jeopardy.

Both sides must act to calm these tensions before the world’s most important trade partners become embroiled in a mutually self-defeating trade conflict. The Schumer bill, if enacted, would thwart ongoing efforts in both countries to sustain the fragile global economic recovery and create more jobs and more prosperity in America and China alike. Whatever the pressures politically, America’s best interest economically is in keeping America open to growing and mutually beneficial two-way trade with China.

For its part, China can stop relying on cheap exports for growth, and start relying on spending by Chinese consumers in its rapidly developing economy. China could also reconsider “indigenous innovation” and other short-sighted, protectionist policies that make U.S. and other trade partners and investors fear that China is retreating from liberalization. Above all, the farther and faster the yuan rises against the dollar, the sooner and more significant the easing of trade tensions.

These actions would do much to help President Obama and others in the U.S. who are trying hard to stop the tariff-rattling and bring the two countries back from the brink of a destructive trade war. It’s in everyone’s interests that they succeed.

Mr. Bacchus is a former chairman of the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body, congressman and U.S. trade negotiator. He is currently a partner at Greenberg Traurig in Washington.