New Obama ad challenges Romney on China

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama challenged rival Mitt Romney's promise to get tough on China, saying in a new ad released Saturday that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee "made a fortune" allowing China to take U.S. jobs.

Obama's ad turns again to a report that several businesses backed by Romney's former private equity firm moved American jobs to China and India to cut costs. In a parting shot, a narrator says Romney is "not the solution. He's the problem."

The ad follows Obama's two-day bus tour in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the president announced plans to file a trade complaint against China for unfairly imposing duties on U.S.-produced automobiles.

China remains a flash point in the presidential campaign.

Romney has accused Obama of being too soft on the Asian nation, saying he would label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office and defend against the theft of intellectual property and job losses.

Obama's administration says it has taken a broad effort to crack down on what it calls unfair Chinese trading practices.

The 30-second spot opens with a clip of Romney during a 2011 GOP primary debate. He says "the Chinese are smiling all the way to the bank taking our jobs and taking a lot of our future. And I am not willing to let that happen."

A narrator responds that Romney "made a fortune letting it happen." The ad refers to a newspaper account about the role Romney's firm played with companies that were "pioneers" in helping outsource jobs.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said it was "no surprise President Obama would want to distract Americans from the devastating June jobs numbers, but the American people deserve better than dishonest ads."

The federal government reported Friday that the U.S. economy added only 80,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate stayed at 8.2 percent.