Obama urged to revive China investment talks

By James Politi in New York

The Obama administration should revive discussions with China over a bilateral investment treaty, a senior Republican in the House of Representatives said as he pressed the White House to adopt a more aggressive trade policy.

Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, accused the administration of a “lack of action” on the China investment treaty, saying it was “as confusing as it is damaging to the interests of US businesses and their workers”.

“Again we are sitting on the sidelines while our trading partners are aggressively moving forward – many of which have already signed investment agreements with China that give their investors more rights in China than US investors have,” Mr Camp told the National Press Club in Washington.

Talks between China and the US over a potential BIT have been on ice since they were launched in 2008 – the final year of the George W. Bush administration, as trade tensions between the two global economic powers rose.

As he called for a BIT to be part of American trade policy with China, Mr Camp said congressional scrutiny of currency manipulation “missed the far larger issues we have with China”, saying the Asian nation “flagrantly disregards its international obligations and seeks to impede fair commerce at every opportunity”.

At a White House summit between Barack Obama, US president, and Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, last month, China and the US said in a joint statement that they were both committed to a BIT that would “support an open global economy by facilitating and protecting investment, and enhancing transparency and predictability for both countries”.

After his remarks on Wednesday, Mr Camp held a hearing on US trade policy featuring testimony from Ron Kirk, US trade representative, pressing him to move swiftly to advance free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.

Republicans would like to see all three of the FTAs submitted to Congress within six months.

While Mr Kirk said the ratification process for the South Korea deal would begin “in the next few weeks”, he said “serious issues” remained with Colombia and Panama that went to “core US values and interests, such as the protection of labour rights”. He said Mr Obama had asked him to step up its engagement with Colombia and Panama, adding that the administration’s goal was to overcome those hurdles “as soon as possible this year”.