Unanimous Consent Agreement--S. 295
UNANIMOUS CONSENT AGREEMENT--S. 295
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Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for giving a very good explanation of where we started and where we are today and where we hope to be in the future. Where we started was a situation where China saw no self-interest in allowing their currency to meet international monetary standards of being valued by the market.
The practice of pegging the yuan to the dollar has created a tremendous manufacturing disadvantage for our manufacturers. It has hurt every competitor China deals with. It is a practice that needs to change because China has changed.
Our goal is to allow that change to come about in a reasoned way, in a win-win fashion. The change that occurred, as Senator Schumer spoke about, where there was a slight revaluation, was a very good signal coming from China. It was an optimistic event. Since then, 4 months later, very little has happened.
I know the President is going to put it on the table when he goes to China. We stand behind our President in this regard, that we in the Senate, 67 of us, anyway, and the President, through Secretary Snow, and the President himself, have been urging the Chinese to change their currency practices. It is the position of the administration that it should float, while it is also the position of the Senate that China needs to change their currency practices. As Alan Greenspan has said so well, it is in China's self-interest.
I do hope, as Senator Schumer said, that after this meeting with President Bush there will be further progress. So I am guardedly optimistic but resolved to make sure we have a level playing field when it comes to dealing with China. This is an opportunity for a win-win. I hope the Chinese will take us up on it and we can have a better relationship.
This one issue is one of the defining moments in the U.S.-China relationship economically and we will see what time yields in terms of these negotiations.
I yield back all time.
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