Would label China as currency manipulator, says Donald Trump

Washington, Sept 16: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said, if elected, he would label China as currency manipulator and apply countervailing duties until the country ceases its illegal trade activities.

"If China does not stop its illegal activities, including its theft of American trade secrets and intellectual properties, I will apply countervailing duties until China ceases and desists," Trump said in a major speech on economic policies.

This action of enforcing intellectual property rules alone, just alone, would add millions of new American jobs, he said. After becoming the president of the country, Trump said he will instruct his Treasury Secretary to label China as a currency manipulator.

"They are a currency manipulator, and we're going to apply tariffs to any country that devalues its currency to gain an unfair advantage over the United States. They are a manipulator, grand master level. We can't allow it to happen," he said.

"Our people and our representatives and our politicians don't have even a little clue as to how to play the game. We have a trade deficit this year with China of approximately USD500 billion.

"The people that are manufacturers that are great manufacturers, very successful people but they become less and less successful because they can't beat the system. In this way, too, it's a rigged system. And they're almost doing well and then, boom, there's a massive devaluation in china or other countries and there are plenty of other countries out there and some are actually hurting China, now," Trump said.

Trump said that many of the special interests funding his opponent Hillary Clinton's campaign are the same people profiting from terrible trade deals.

"The same so-called experts advising Hillary Clinton are the same people who gave us NAFTA, China's entry into the World Trade Organisation, the job-killing trade deal with South Korea, another disaster, and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership that they're pushing so strongly," he said.

Setting an annual growth rate target of four per cent, Trump announced a series of plans and tax incentives which he claimed would create 25 million jobs in the US.

"We're a nation that tamed the West, dug out the Panama Canal, and won two world wars, and put a man on the moon. It's time to start thinking big once again. That's why I believe it's time to establish a national goal of reaching four percent economic growth," Trump said.

"In working with my economic team, we've put together a plan that puts us on track to achieve that goal. Over the next 10 years, our economic team estimates that under our plan, the economy will average 3.5 per cent growth and create a total of 25 million new jobs. You can visit our web site, just look at the math. It works," he said amidst applause.

Asserting that he will turn America into a "new magnet for new jobs", Trump rued right now companies are leaving the country because taxes are too high.

PTI