Romney: U.S. Has Basis To End Open Trade With China

The Huffington Post reports:

There has been no shortage of China-bashing in the brief course of the Republican presidential primary, highlighted by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann riling up a debt-fearing conservative crowd with the memorable double entendre: "Hu's your daddy!"

On Tuesday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney appeared to ratchet up the rhetoric beyond even that one-liner, suggesting that there was a basis for ending U.S. trade relations with China altogether.

"I'm not sure, whether the intellectual property you have is regularly being stolen by competition around the world, but in the case of China, for instance, we've sat idly by as they have stolen -- year after year -- intellectual property: Designs, patents and so forth," Romney told a crowd member at a Mosiac Technology Business Roundtable in Salem, N.H. "And I don't see how you can have a trade relationship, on an open basis, with another nation if they're stealing a large part of what it is you sell."