What [Donald] has put up for question is this idea of tariffs. Initially, he said if China won't stop taking advantage of us and manipulating their currency, then I will put tariffs in place. That spooked everybody because if you charge China a fee and an extra tariff for anything they bring into the United States, what's going to happen is that companies carrying those goods are going to raise prices. It's going to be expensive for people. People got scared of that, but then he walked that [idea] back. I don't think anybody is expecting heavy tariffs on anything.
I see something different in Hillary Clinton. She wants a trade prosecutor. She's going after currency. She's going stand up strong on keeping China designated as a non-market economy.
If we are going to go into a global currency fight against countries like China, well, the US has about 75, 76 billion in foreign reserves. They're going to be up against China with 1.7 trillion in US dollars and foreign reserves, so it's not much of a fight there. It could be an interesting fight though.
I would tell China that if you don't straighten out your manipulation of the currency - and I mean fast; I mean really fast - we are going to tax your products 25%.
I'm not concerned about what [Donald Trump] says about me. That doesn't matter to me. I'm going to stand up for immigrants. I'm going to stand up for American Muslims who are working hard in this country that they love and consider their own. I'm going to stand up for other women. I'm going to stand up for the right to choose.
Assad is not going away, but we're not going to stop beating up on him. We're not going to stop saying that the way he treats the people in Syria is wrong, that he has actually killed his own people and America will never stand for that.
If money is the root of all evil, then China's manipulation of its currency, the yuan, is the tap root of everything wrong with the U.S.-China trade relationship.
Our jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico. They're going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product. They're devaluing their currency, and there's nobody in our government to fight them. And we have a very good fight. And we have a winning fight. Because they're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing.
We could never light another match, and if China continues to build one coal-fired power plant a week, we are doomed. China is going to have to have new technologies made available to it to stop this. They're not going to live in poverty.
China got the local currency, the yuan which is appreciating against the dollar which means that all these Chinese people have more purchasing power. And they're willing now to spend some money after saving, you know they provided America with savings for years. Now they're going to spend some money. So this means that they are willing to allow the dollar to weaken because it means that their currency, the yuan goes up, so they're actually in a winning situation.
The really big problem with China is that there are the unfair trade practices, like currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies and the theft of intellectual property, but then there's also things that the WTO doesn't cover that it should, which is the use of sweat shops and pollution havens.
It's not like I'm anti-China. I just think it's ridiculous that we allow them to do what they're doing to this country, with the manipulation of the currency, that you write about and understand, and all of the other things that they do.
You're not going to be perfect, you're not going to stop berating yourself, you're not going to stop the comparisons, you're not going to stop the judgment, but you can become evermore mindful of it, and that has to be good enough.
What there is no dispute about is whether or not China is a currency manipulator. They are a currency manipulator. They actively intervene every single day to keep the value of their currency less than it would be against the dollar than if it floated freely. We think. Even China barely disputes that.
You stand up to bullies. Don't shrink back. You fight back with all your strength, and the press is going to have to do it, politicians are going to have to do it, all of us are going to have to do it.
China's idea of fair trade is government subsidies of its textile and apparel exports to the United States, currency manipulation, and forgiveness of loans by its government banks.