By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON | Tue Sep 6, 2011 6:19pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Democrats urged the Obama administration and Congress to take action against Chinese trade policies they said are unfairly hurting America's environmental technology sector and making it harder to create jobs.

"China is systematically deploying an arsenal of trade distorting policies to corner the global market in green technology products, whether it be electric cars, wind turbines or solar products," Representative Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in a statement.

"Our efforts to put Americans back to work are made all the more difficult by China's policies, and it is time we take action to counter them -- either through aggressive use of our domestic trade laws or through WTO cases," Levin said as lawmakers returned from a month-long break.

Last week, Solyndra LLC filed for bankruptcy, becoming the third U.S. solar firm to succumb to pressure from lower-priced Chinese rivals in recent weeks.

Concern about Beijing's trade policies is fueled by the huge U.S. trade deficit with hina, which hit a record $273 billion in 2010 and could surpass that this year, and by persistently high U.S. unemployment.

"This deficit is, without question, the single most important issue on the trade agenda today, and we look forward to continuing to work with the administration and our Republican colleagues to address it," Representative Jim McDermott, a Washington Democrat, said.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer also told reporters on Tuesday Democrats would push for a vote on a bill to allow the Commerce Department to treat Chinese "currency manipulation" as an actionable subsidy under U.S. trade law.

Many U.S. lawmakers say China deliberately undervalues its currency against the dollar to give its companies an unfair price advantage in international trade.







Democrats urge action on China trade policies

The total disregard for rules and regulation has been an issue for years, with copyright and patent infringement, currency manipulation, and a host of other enviromental and labor issues. These stories come up from time to time but I think it gets squashed when China probably hangs the note of our debt over our heads.

Maybe some polies will do something when their jobs and ego are on the line. Alas, probably not though.

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Great news. Let China lose their shirts on this BS.

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Brujo, gdudewe, martinA and WG - the white Al Sharptons of NSR.

Spoken like an 1880 buggy whip manufacturer looking at Henry Ford.

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Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, and it is all organized by the Italians.

Neither car makers of the time nor oil barons lost their shirts. Nor did they get billions in gov't subsidies. They came up with a better idea than what was out there.

Bottom line is that we should go with the cheapest source of energy, whatever that may be. If it were solar panels and windmills, I'd be the first one to condemn gov't for subsidizing oil or coal so that they could compete with windmills, etc.

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Brujo, gdudewe, martinA and WG - the white Al Sharptons of NSR.

China is just continuing to jockey for position as No. 1 in the world economy.  Not sure how much more jockying they actually have to do...

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