US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said China’s economic issues are proving to be a headwind for the US and global economies and that the Asian nation’s fortunes are a result of its own policy choices.
“The United States economy is the engine of growth for the global economy, not by mistake,” Ademeyo said in an interview with Annmarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu on Bloomberg Television’s Balance of Power Wednesday. The expansion is due to “policy choices we’ve made — like the inflation Reduction Act, which is leading to a manufacturing boom here.”
Adeyemo said China has made “a set of different decisions” and now presents “a headwind — not just to the US economy, but to the global economy.” He said the US is “better prepared to deal with that than any other economy in the world because of the policy choices we made here in America that are allowing our economy to grow us to create jobs while inflation is coming down.”
In blaming China’s government for the country’s economic woes, Adeyemo went a step further than Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did on Monday, when she labeled China’s issues a “risk factor” for the US.
Worries continued to mount this week over the outlook for growth in China. The yuan fell to the weakest level since November after the release of a series of disappointing economic figures. The currency has now tumbled about 5% this year, the worst performer in Asia after the yen.
The Treasury officials’ comments come days after President Joe Biden blasted China’s economic problems as a “ticking time bomb” and referred to Communist Party leaders as “bad folks.” Speaking at a political fundraiser on Aug. 11, Biden said China was in “trouble” because its growth had slowed and due to its high unemployment rate.
Adeyemo spoke on the first anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate legislation that the deputy Treasury chief said has led to more than 200 projects that equate to about $110 billion of potential investment in the US economy.
