Florida’s Global Village Testing Ground for Romney Trade Policy
Swiveling his chair in a Port of Miami conference room, Bill Johnson smacks his hand on a wall- mounted image that shows planned upgrades. Here, a new highway tunnel. There, a refurbished rail link.
…
“Florida is in the forefront,” says Johnson, the port’s director.
Yet Republicans meeting this week in Tampa will nominate for president a candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose policies may slow that transformation.
…
On China, Romney threatens to levy duties on Chinese imports unless the yuan is allowed to rise against the dollar, making American products less expensive for Chinese customers, and attacks President Barack Obama for not doing more to open foreign markets. Yet he simultaneously calls for a “strong, stable dollar” and has criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke for weakening the U.S. currency.
Should Romney win in November, resolving those contradictions would represent an early test for his administration.
“If Romney were to actually implement everything he says with regard to China, you’d probably provoke a trade war,” said Daniel Drezner, a former Treasury Department economist and now a professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Massachusetts. “At the same time, I don’t think he means it.”
Read the full article (more)