Obama campaign advert challenges Romney’s stance on business deal

President Barack Obama’s campaign aired a new TV advert this weekend challenging Mitt Romney’s promises to crack down on China’s trading practices, saying that the Republican candidate profited by allowing China to strip away American jobs.

Mr Obama’s ad uses a recent Washington Post report that several businesses backed by Mr Romney’s former private equity firm moved American jobs to China and India to cut costs.

The ad follows Mr Obama’s two-day bus tour in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the president announced plans to file a trade complaint against China at the World Trade Organisation for unfairly imposing duties on US-produced cars. Mr Romney has accused Mr Obama of failing to live up to promises to get tough on China, saying he would label it a currency manipulator on his first day in office and fight the theft of intellectual property and job losses.

The 30-second spot opens with a clip of Mr Romney during a 2011 Republican 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”.