First Piece of Stabenow's "American Competitiveness Plan" Passes Key Senate Vote

Press Release

An overwhelming bipartisan majority in the U.S. Senate tonight voted to move forward on a bill cosponsored by Senator Debbie Stabenow to crackdown on countries like China involved in artificially manipulating their currency. The vote represented the measure's first hurdle and sets up a vote for final passage as early as this week.

Senator Stabenow has been a leader in the effort to stop currency manipulation for years, and it seems now that the Senate may finally be poised to act.

"China's illegal currency manipulation directly translates to lost American jobs and suffering for families, especially in Michigan," said Senator Stabenow. "I've been fighting to stop China's illegal action on currency for years, and with bipartisan momentum growing, now is the time for Congress to finally get this done. Standing up to China to stop this practice would create American jobs and reduce the deficit at the same time."

Currency manipulation, the act of a country purposefully devaluing its own currency, distorts exchange rates, making the manipulating countries goods artificially cheaper while making other nations' goods more expensive. Estimates suggest stopping China's illegal currency manipulation could help spur the creation of up to 1.6 million American jobs, while stopping manipulation in all countries could create as many as 2.25 million.

Ending currency manipulation would also reduce the deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that initial duties collected from Senator Stabenow's plan to stop manipulation would save $65 million. However, by creating new economic activity and jobs, some estimates suggest total deficit reduction would be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Earlier today in Detroit, home to North America's busiest border crossing in terms of international trade, Senator Debbie Stabenow unveiled her "American Competiveness Plan," a set of action steps designed to ensure U.S. businesses and workers can become more globally competitive and create more jobs in America. Senator Stabenow's plan includes several bills, which now have bipartisan support, designed to stand up for American businesses by cracking down on other countries' trade violations that give their companies an anti-competitive advantage.

Senator Stabenow unveiled her plan from the new headquarters of the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority. She was joined by business leaders and workers who agreed that stronger action to stop other countries' unfair trade practices was critical to bolster U.S. job creation.

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