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China concerned with 'Buy American'
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waves upon leaving for Beijing at a military airbase in Seongnam, south of Seoul -- February 20, 2009
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Steve Chiotakis: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travels to Beijing with a lot on her plate: climate change, North Korea, human rights, to name a few. Let's bring in our China bureau chief Scott Tong in Shanghai… Scott, we know what's on Secretary Clinton's agenda. What's on the mind of Chinese leaders?
Scott Tong: Protectionism. They are really concerned about the "Buy American" language that just came out of the American stimulus package. What it does is it freezes out of the U.S. market certain steel-exporting countries like China. And China knows what it's doing if it decides to retaliate. That's what the U.S. business community here is worried about, that Beijing will come out and say, you know what, we're not going to buy from Boeing anymore, we're going to buy from Airbus; we're going to buy Seaman's out of Germany instead of Westinghouse. And the point that they make is, do we really want American industry locked out of China, which is one of the few big economies on the planet that's still growing these days?
Chiotakis: And for China, what's the risk of friction here? I mean it owns billions and billions of dollars in U.S. government bonds right now, correct?
Tong: Well, $700 billion or so right now, and advisers to the government say that Chinese officials are going to look Secretary Clinton in the eye and say, we want some guarantee from the U.S. government that our bonds are secure. Because in the future, we're going to think about buying more, and we want some kind of confidence to come out of Washington. On the other hand, fine -- if China decides it wants to sell off or put its money elsewhere, the question is, where? And right now, there are no other viable places to put it, and Chinese officials say that. I mean, there is a reason currency traders sold off their Australian currency and their Korean currency in this global financial crisis and they bought American dollars, because that's where the security is right now.
Chiotakis: All right, Marketplace's Scott Tong joining us from Shanghai. Scott, thank you.
Tong: You're welcome, Steve.
If you want to save or bring back American jobs buy as little as possible of anything not made in America. I know it is hard, I've tried it. So now I only buy what I MUST, especially if it is from China. Why should we as Americans finance a Communist country who mistreat their people (poison them with their products, don't pay insurance, pay pennies per hour, etc.), pollute the air, don't pay attention to patents, and control everthing their people watch or hear? Save America!!!
Is there any american willing to work 10 hours a day and 6 days a week? oh, did I mention you will be paid 50c/hr. If yes, go sewing up that pair of shoes, I will buy the "made in america" shoe. But let emphasis, I will not pay anything more a pair of similar shoes made from china or else where. why should I?
Why is China so concerned with buy American when Americans are at all concerned with buying American, which is why so many Americans are out of jobs. Today at the mall shopping I found everything made in China, Mexico, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Guatemala and 2 others countries I can't remember pronounce, except there wasn't anything from the USA. I got two (2) words for China and it's not merry christmas.
What China and certain politicians need to understand is that the US consumer is their primary market, and if the US consumer does not earn money, they don't buy consumer goods, cars, Home Depot products, and appliances assembled with parts made in China out of Chinese steel. An investment in US employment is an investment into recovering China's biggets market.
And to China, I recently purchased $500 worth of energy saving products made by you from 4 different manufacturers. The promised energy savings was supposed to give me a payback within 3 to 5 years. 3 out of those 4 products failed to work, not failed to save as promised, but completely failed and had to be removed and replaced within 3 months. Good thing I did not throw away the old stuff. The 4rth product also has issues and if it gets worse will need to be replaced.
So.... China, shut up and get your own house in order. You do not have an automatic right to be the exclusive supplier to the US market.
