The hearing showed some growing unrest among lawmakers regarding the direction of U.S.-China trade relations. House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin described the bi-lateral relationship as one-sided and talked about the need to take bold action to ensure that trade with China becomes a two-way street for U.S. manufacturers, farmers and service providers. Once again, the mounting trade deficit took centre stage in the discussion, with Levin arguing that this imbalance is partly the result of China's continued non-compliance with its WTO obligations and the U.S. failure to challenge this non-compliance. According to Levin, the administration should file WTO dispute settlement complaints to counter Chinese industrial policies that discriminate against imports, China's currency manipulation and China's failure to adequately enforce intellectual property rights. In yet another sign that the application of countervailing duty law to China and other non-market economies is rapidly becoming a popular issue in Congress, Levin announced that he will work with other House members to develop legislation to make currency manipulation subject to U.S. CV duty law and to direct the administration to pursue CV duty cases against NMEs.

Sen. Ben Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) did not deviate much from Levin's general line of thinking as he argued that China's unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation, flagrant piracy of intellectual property, industrial subsidies and unreasonable restrictions on market access, "have led to historic trade imbalances allowing China to acquire [a] too large amount of U.S. debt." The rise in the bi-lateral trade deficit, Cardin explained, is a "dangerous trend" caused in part by China's continuing manipulation of the yuan.

Former Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Grant Aldonas offered a vastly different perspective as he cautioned his audience not to blame China for much of what ails the U.S. economically. Aldonas strongly believes that the U.S. controls its own economic destiny and should focus on building the political consensus needed to tackle the challenges at hand, including an aging population, wage compression for unskilled workers, lower social mobility, rising health care costs and government debt. Demonising China is problematic for several reasons, he said. Treating China as a threat could become a self-fulfilling prophecy and often serves to obscure far more serious issues from examination. As regards this second point, Aldonas argued, in line with many administration officials, that China's enormous savings rate is a far more important source of that country's surplus than Chinese competitiveness or any restrictions placed by Beijing on the value of the yuan. In fact, he suggested that the yuan could fall rather than increase if China lifted all capital controls and moved to an unrestrained floating exchange rate system. Focusing squarely on the yuan also obscures a more important problem, namely, the massive subsidies available to Chinese companies. In Aldonas' mind, policymakers would be better served by debunking a number of myths about the U.S. economic relationship with China and focusing on the real economic challenges.