In a hastily arranged Beijing news conference, Chinese Minister of Imports Bing Liu announced that in honor of the Olympic Games, China had agreed to accept one U.S. import as a token of positive relations between the two nations.
“Americans buy so much from China,” Minister Bing told reporters. “It’s only fair. The hard thing is figuring out what we want to buy from the U.S. You guys really make nothing we want.”
Bing said that “high price, poor selection, and low quality” were the main reasons Chinese consumers and businesses were not interested in American goods.
“We would really like to buy something authentically American,” Bing said, “like an American flag or New Balance running shoes or maybe a Ralph Lauren necktie. But it turns out that all that stuff is made here in China. If you have something good to sell us, we would like to import it. At least one item, even as a symbolic gesture. Something. Anything.”
China is currently running a $20.2 billion monthly trade surplus with the United States, according to recent press reports.
The Minister looked out at the sea of reporters and asked, “Any ideas?”
The press entourage shifted uneasily in its seats and averted its eyes, because none of them could think of anything the Chinese might want to import from the United States.
After an uncomfortable pause, the Minister added, “We really want to import something from America. Just for goodwill. Say, do jobs count?”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment