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March 28, 2006
That didn't take long
Senators Schumer and Graham are backing off. (NY Times)
"We came back from China with a real feeling that the Chinese realized that pegging their currency is not only bad for America, but bad for China as well." Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said. "We hope there will be real movement in the coming months."
...
"The small progress we have seen needs to continue," Mr. Graham said today, referring to a 3 percent appreciation of the yuan in the last eight months. "I'm willing to abandon the need for tariffs if the Chinese embark on real reform. We're not there yet."
They plan to delay the vote until the last scheduled day of the session. (Pocket veto, anyone?) It probably won't come to that anyway. None of the coverage of this has said anything about a similar bill in the House. The closest thing I could find on the House side is HR 3004 introduced in June of last year. I'm not sure that either body wants to hammer out the details in conference at the last minute. Sound and fury, etc., etc. Still,...
...they said they reserved the right to bring the measure up sooner if the Chinese slow down the appreciation of its currency.
We'll see. Senator Schumer seems to be doing everything he can to back down without coming out and saying it was a mistake. This must be tiring to the Chinese, but they can't totally ignore it either.
Let's see how the state visit in April turns out.
UPDATE: Menzie Chinn discusses the possible effects of revaluation in this excellent post.
Posted by William Polley at March 28, 2006 4:03 PM
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