Industry Group Slams Daley as White House Pick, Citing Strong Ties to China Outsourcing Lobby

The U.S. Business and Industry Council, on January 6, charged that President Obama's choice of William M. Daley as White House Chief of Staff rewards the multinational business and financial interests whose massive offshoring moves have weakened America's productive economy and helped trigger the ongoing economic crisis.

Citing Daley's position on the board of the nation's main organization of corporate China outsourcers, the Council called Obama's decision a towering obstacle to hopes for overhauling the failed China and global trade policies that ballooned America's national debt and set the stage for the nation's near financial collapse.

"As a director of the U.S.-China Business Council, William Daley for years helped footloose multinational companies send critical masses of America's jobs, production, and technology to the People's Republic. These outsourcing multinationals can now save big-time on lobbying. After all, one of their cabal has a key to the White House," said USBIC President Kevin L. Kearns. The Council is comprised of 2,000 domestic companies.

Kearns noted that Daley also played a major role as Clinton administration Commerce Secretary in winning Congressional approval for permanent normalized trade relations with China, and for Beijing's admission into the World Trade Organization.

These decisions, Kearns explained, "created overwhelming new incentives for offshoring to China by at last guaranteeing unfettered access to the U.S. market for the China-based factories of the multinationals, which were then free to engage in labor, regulatory, currency, and tax arbitrage. But Daley helped push the deceptive Clinton administration line that these China trade deals mainly aimed at opening China's market for U.S.-based producers."

Continued Kearns, "No wonder America's trade deficits with the PRC have exploded, along with our national debt, since Daley's tenure as Clinton Commerce Secretary. No wonder our domestic productive base can no longer supply our national needs. No wonder we careened from crisis to recession. No wonder real unemployment is still more than 17%. And no wonder Daley's multinational partners showered China with advanced technology -- much of which has been put to military use and now endangers American security interests."