海角大神

China 330, US 88.

Those numbers are not the score of some hotly contested international sporting event, but the value of the goods 鈥� in billions of dollars 鈥� that each country sells to the other.

That yawning gap between the two will loom large as President Obama pursues a goal he announced in his State of the Union address: doubling US exports and creating 2 million trade-related jobs in the next half decade.

China may not be America鈥檚 largest trading partner, but its economy is the fastest-growing major economy in the world. Unless the US-China trade gap is seriously addressed, some economists say, the goal of 2 million new trade-related jobs will be unattainable.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do it without cracking the Chinese market, and you can鈥檛 crack the Chinese market without doing something about China鈥檚 currency manipulation and trade barriers,鈥� says Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland鈥檚 Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park. 鈥淵ou can talk, but without some tough action, you鈥檙e not going to get much done.鈥�

So far, however, the Obama administration is carefully skirting any direct confrontation with China.

On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke unveiled a three-pillar plan for reaching the president鈥檚 goals. In a speech outlining Mr. Obama鈥檚 National Export Initiative, Secretary Locke said that the administration would increase export financing, beef up government assistance to US exporters, and bring tougher enforcement to trade pacts.

The program, Locke said, would address an 鈥渆conomic blind spot鈥� that in recent years has allowed other countries to 鈥渃hip away鈥� at America鈥檚 international competitiveness. But he did not cite any particular countries as responsible for that chipping away.

That may change this weekend, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is to meet in Canada with other finance ministers for the wealthy countries in the Group of Seven. He鈥檚 expected to address the issue of China鈥檚 undervalued currency.

Obama made only a passing reference to China in discussing US trade challenges with Democratic senators Wednesday. He said the United States would be 鈥減utting constant pressure on China and other countries to open up their markets,鈥� adding that 鈥渙ne of the challenges that we鈥檝e got to address internationally is currency rates and how they match up.鈥� Any artificially undervalued currency, he said, 鈥減uts us at a huge competitive disadvantage.鈥�

But just Obama鈥檚 use of the word 鈥減ressure鈥� drew a quick reaction from China. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters in Beijing that 鈥渃riticism and pressing obviously is not helpful to solving problems,鈥� according to the Associated Press. The Chinese currency鈥檚 exchange rate 鈥渋s not the major reason for the Chinese-US trade deficit,鈥� he said.

But according to Professor Morici, China鈥檚 undervalued currency is a major problem. In order to address an issue that China won鈥檛, he says, the US should levy a tax on Chinese imports that would raise those imports鈥� price to where they would be under a fairly revalued Chinese currency. He acknowledges that is unlikely to happen, however, given the howls of protest that would come from major importers of Chinese goods.

Trade-promoting groups in the US are supportive of Obama鈥檚 export initiative but say that there are other trade issues that will require attention.

鈥淐hina is critically important, but China is a political issue, and our trade relationship with China is likely to get worse before it gets better,鈥� says Jake Colvin, vice president for global trade issues at the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington. 鈥淭hat shouldn鈥檛 stop us from moving forward on some of the things the president talked about in his [State of the Union] speech, like concluding the Doha Round [of global trade talks] and passing the [free-trade agreements] with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.鈥�

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