Don't blame it all on China's currency manipulation

THIS is no time to get all worked up over China's currency manipulation. To use it as an excuse to resist the Obama administration's pro-trade posture is perverse. This opposition weakens America's competitive position. All of Asia - the fastest growing part of the world economy - is watching the debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If Congress derails Mr Obama's trade policies, these countries will rightly conclude that the United States is not a dependable partner. By default, they would be swept into a trading system dominated by China.

To be clear: China's currency manipulation has been real and harmful to US-based firms and workers. By a variety of estimates, Chinese exports have probably cost two million or more American jobs since 2000. I have been a critic of the currency manipulation in the past and still am. In an ideal world, we would have moved energetically to eliminate it. But (surprise!) we do not live in an ideal world and, for many reasons, it is less important now than it once was.

For starters, recall that trade-induced job losses are not (and never have been) America's main employment problem. Domestic developments dominate the US labour market, for good and ill. The American economy now supports about 150 million jobs - two million is a small share of that. But of course, if imports eliminated your job, it is devastating.