US currency bill does 'more harm than good'

WASHINGTON - The US-China Business Council (USCBC), a leading bilateral business organization, said Wednesday that a controversial currency bill passed by the US Senate will do more harm than good.

The USCBC continues to advocate that China needs to move faster toward a market-determined exchange rate, but passing tariff legislation on imports from China will not get us closer to this goal and will "hit the pocketbooks of American households" at a time they least can afford it, USCBC Vice President Erin Ennis said in a statement.

The US Senate on Tuesday passed a controversial currency bill which threatens to punish China for so-called "currency manipulation" with retaliatory tariffs, despite strong opposition from China and many US business groups.

Limiting imports from China would not mean an increase in US employment or lower the trade deficit, and the United States will just shift the imports to another overseas supplier. If this is intended to be a jobs bill, it is a jobs bill for Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico, noted the statement.

The USCBC believes that Obama administration's approach of employing multilateral and bilateral engagement with China is the most useful way to make progress on the exchange rate issue.

The USCBC is a private, nonpartisan and nonprofit organization of roughly 240 US companies that do business with China.