Clinton to offer steps to boost trade enforcement
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will propose on Monday a series of steps to strengthen U.S. trade enforcement and crack down on Chinese trade policies that she says are unfair.
Clinton planned to tell an Alliance for American Manufacturing forum in Pittsburgh that President George W. Bush had failed to use U.S. trade laws to protect U.S. workers and companies, aides said.
Her Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, also is scheduled to speak to the group. The two are in a hard-fought race for the Democratic nomination to face Republican John McCain in November's presidential election.
Clinton said she would aggressively use World Trade Organization mechanisms to challenge unfair trading practices, take steps to crack down on piracy issues and move to provide relief to U.S. companies hurt by surges of Chinese imports.
"We need solutions to fix our trade laws, build a strong manufacturing base, and stand up to China and say that unsafe toys and unfair currency practices are unacceptable," Clinton will say at the meeting, according to excerpts of her speech.
Clinton has emphasized efforts to protect U.S. jobs ahead of the April 22 showdown with Obama in Pennsylvania, the next battleground in the race and a state hard-hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs,
"I know what manufacturing means for this country. It means good jobs, thriving communities and the products that keep this country going and growing every single day," the New York senator said.
Trade issues have been in the spotlight in the Democratic race as Obama and Clinton have appealed for blue-collar and labor backing by promising to renegotiate the unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement and to oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Advisers to both candidates landed in trade controversies. An Obama adviser reportedly told the Canadian government the Illinois senator did not mean his NAFTA talk, while Clinton's top strategist Mark Penn was demoted for working on behalf of the Colombian government to promote the trade pact.
In her speech to the manufacturers group, Clinton planned to say the Bush administration had stood by while the trade deficit soared and China's holdings of U.S. public debt climbed.
The administration had brought less than three complaints a year to the WTO alleging trading partners with breaking WTO rules, she said, compared to 11 a year under the administration of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
She also said the administration was slow to address China's currency manipulation and worked against efforts for relief to threatened U.S. industries.
Clinton promised a more active use of a trade provision allowing outside groups to petition the government about unfair practices by trading partners, which she said the Bush administration had failed to use.
She also called for creation of an Intellectual Property Enforcement Network to crack down on piracy in the intellectual property industry. Aides said the U.S. auto industry loses $12 billion a year from counterfeits, with China responsible for three-quarters of it.
(Editing by Jackie Frank)
