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 Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow said she was working with
colleagues from both parties on a possible standalone bill to stop
currency cheats and also aimed to ensure that an ambitious Pacific
trade pact includes strict currency rules.
"We are talking about the right time to introduce a bill," Stabenow
said in an interview with Reuters. "Our message is that we should
not agree to any trade agreement that does not have strong currency
enforcement."
The planned push is a further complication for U.S. officials
already fighting opposition to fast-tracking trade deals through
Congress and worries about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The TPP deal covers 12 countries representing 40 percent of the
world economy, including Japan, whose yen currency has weakened due
to the country's economic stimulus measures.
Fresh demands from Congress would come at a delicate time for the
TPP, which officials hope to wrap up within months after nearly five
years of discussions.
But U.S. auto makers fear increased competition from Japan, and the
American Automotive Policy Council, which represents Chrysler, Ford
and General Motors - all based in Michigan - has said it will oppose
a deal without strong currency rules.
Democrat Sherrod Brown, who has introduced similar legislation in
the past, is coordinating bipartisan work on a bill in the Senate
and House lawmakers have also been consulted.
Brown has championed U.S. steel producers such as Nucor Corporation
and AK Steel Corporation in trade cases against China, which
companies also accuse of currency manipulation.
Republican Pat Tiberi, who chairs the trade subcommittee of the
House Committee on Ways and Means, said the possibility of a
separate bill was still under discussion but the issue had traction
from both parties.
More than half the lawmakers in the last Congress signed letters
calling for tough TPP currency provisions, including 199 current
House members and 50 current Senators.
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"I think there's bipartisan concern about currency manipulation,"
Tiberi said, although one had to balance the risk that including
such rules would upset TPP partners.
A Mexican official familiar with the negotiations said it looked too
late to include a currency measure in the pact.
But another senior TPP country official said a currency clause might
be acceptable if it mimicked existing international covenants, like
International Monetary Fund rules committing countries to eschew
currency manipulation for competitive advantage.
"If it is just going be a copy-paste of something else it's less
serious," he said.
Stabenow said lawmakers were still working out how best to push the
issue in Congress, including the option of amending planned
fast-track legislation, which allows Congress to set negotiating
goals in exchange for a yes-or-no vote.
"The push regarding Japan is to make this one of the criteria in the
trade agreement and the broader issue is that we would be doing
something legislatively that would more broadly impact China and
other countries," she said.
(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Editing by Sandra Maler, Leslie Adler
and Alan Crosby)
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