Bush pressures China on currency in campaign
by Griffin Shea
CANTON, Ohio, July 31, 2004 (AFP) - President George W. Bush took a swipe at China's currency policy Saturday, vowing to protect US workers as he hailed the nation's economic recovery while touring this key electoral state hit hard by job losses.
Bush promised to protect US trade interests overseas, calling on China to loosen its currency's decade-old peg to the dollar and saying he would work to enforce international trade deals.
"We understand what currency valuations can do to manufacturing, particularly in eastern Ohio," he told the cheering crowd at an auditorium here.
"We've been working with China to put fair policy in place. Just give us a chance to compete, is all we're asking."
The United States last year began accusing China of keeping its currency undervalued, a practice Democratic candidate John Kerry has claimed takes away American jobs and allowed China to enjoy a 124 billion dollar trade surplus with the United States in 2003.
Jobs remain a central campaign issue three months before the November 2 presidential election, even as the United States has posted strong economic growth.
But here in Ohio and in Michigan, which Bush visited Friday, the number of jobs continues to shrink.
In June, Ohio lost jobs for the eighth time in 10 months. The state has lost more than 200,000 jobs since March 2001.
Bush last came to Canton in April 2003, when he told workers at the Timken international steel company that his tax cuts would create jobs.
But in May, Timken announced it would close three facilities around Canton over the next two years, costing some 1,300 jobs. The company is owned by a major Bush fundraiser, Tim Timken Jr.
A group of the affected workers spoke to the Democratic National Convention in Boston this week, where their plight was used to symbolize the loss of factory jobs around the country.
On his way to Canton, Bush brougt 10 Timken workers on board his bus.
"They're concerned. I am too," Bush said at a rally in an auditorium here.
"The economy is strong and getting stronger. It lags in places like eastern Ohio.
"In order to keep jobs at home, America must be the best place to do business," he said.
"We can do more to make America more job friendly, and America's workplaces more family friendly, to keep our jobs in America."
The bus tour marks Bush's sixth visit to Ohio this year, with another trip here planned for next week.
Kerry was also touring Ohio, with one stop just 85 miles (135 kilometers) from here scheduled later Saturday, a measure of the importance both candidates attach to winning the state.
Bush began his trip in Cleveland, one day after lightning visits to Missouri and Michigan, and made his first stop at the training camp for the Cleveland Browns football team.
He threw a football around the field with the team's quarterback, and within half an hour was back on the road in a red, white and blue bus emblazoned with the US flag and his new slogan for this trip, "Heart and Soul, Moving America Forward."
Hundreds of people crowded the streets of Dover, Ohio, a small town where Bush stopped to buy 1.50 dollars worth of sweets from Eiler's candy shop.
American flags were raised and yellow ribbons were tied around tree trunks to honor US soldiers deployed overseas.
Many of the Bush supporters waved professionally printed campaign placards, while Kerry supporters generally held hand-made signs with slogans like "Outsource Bush, not jobs" or "Go home, Bush."
Ohio, with its mix of industrial cities and wide swaths of farmland, is considered a bellwether state in the US elections.
Later Bush headed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- another battleground area where Kerry was also campaigning.
The two men's paths followed so closely that Bush's caravan passed through the town of Wheeling, West Virginia, just one hour before Kerry was scheduled to appear there.