The Senate on Tuesday passed a currency bill that threatens to punish China for so-called "currency manipulation" despite opposition from Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander.
The Currency Exchange Rate Oversight bill pass 64-35.
Senator Alexander called it a “punch in the nose (to) our second largest trade partner, our third largest export market, and our fastest growing export market.”
He said, “Here we are in a fragile moment, when headlines are saying we may be about to dip into a second recession, and what do we do? We delay three trade agreements that would create 250,000 jobs and vote on a bill that would punch in the nose our second largest trade partner, our third largest export market, and our fastest growing export market, even though we know exactly what they will do to us.
History teaches us they will punch us right back in the nose, and the result will be a trade war, which destroys rather than creates jobs. This is not how the world’s strongest economy, the United States of America, should conduct itself. Such legislation is a sign of weakness or lack of self-confidence or defeatism that is not worthy of the United States of America.”