By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas First District Congressman Tracey Mann sees China as a risk to the security of the United States.
"I just think we have to realize that China is not our friend," Mann said. "They are our adversary. You look at what they are doing around the world, you look at how they are unabashedly promoting their interests, you look at their human rights abuses, I think we've got to acknowledge that really, for the rest of this century, the debt and China are our two big adversaries."
That doesn't mean we still shouldn't sell them food and they shouldn't sell us other products, but it's a balance that bears watching and that China hasn't kept its end of the bargain.
"Really, I'm frustrated to see that the phase one China trade deal has now transitioned to phase two," Mann said. "You look back over the last two years and they were short $16 billion on their commitments to buy our ag products. There's got to be accountability there. There also has to be accountability on the intellectual property that they steal and some of the things that they are doing on the world stage."
Mann doesn't have answers for why China didn't spend what they said they would, especially since the weak dollar has made overseas exports, of grain in particular, more competitive.
"That's the question that we're asking," Mann said. "We've been raising this on the floor. We've been raising this at committee. That's exactly the question we're asking. What is the administration's plan to work to make up that difference? Every indication is that as China's economy transforms, they are moving toward commercial hog operations, confined hog feeding, which is a good thing for us, which means they are going to need more sorghum and other commodities that we grow here, but why they've not met their commitments. Those are the questions we're asking right now to try to get to the bottom of it."
Mann opposed the COMPETES Act that passed the House earlier this month due, at least in part, to those concerns about concessions to China.