A number spate of commentators this week have observed that China must revalue its currency or face the consequences.  Newsweek's Bob Samuelson said that the U.S. must confront China on currency:

Confronting China's export subsidies risks a similar tit-for-tat cycle at a time when the global economic recovery is weak. This is a risk, unfortunately, we need to take.

Samuelson recognizes that China's currency manipulation is a serious, worldwide problem that distorts markets and hurts not just U.S. manufacturers but other industrialized nations:

China's worst abuse involves its undervalued currency and its promotion of export-led economic growth. The United States isn't the only victim. China's underpricing of exports and overpricing of imports hurt most trading nations, from Brazil to India. From 2006 to 2010, China's share of world exports jumped from 7 to 10 percent.

Getting Beijing to make real adjustments to its currency has not been easy.  As Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) Executive Director Scott Paul observed in a string of news reports this weekend, it takes real concerted pressure to make Beijing budge.

Reuters reporter Doug Palmer quoted Paul as saying "It's never been more clear to me that China responds to pressure than over the past week.  It's the one currency in the world that's pegged to political pressure." Los Angeles Times reporter Tom Petruno reported Paul's remark that China "will never agree to a currency adjustment until they have the proverbial gun to the head."

China has head-faked movement of its currency so many times that it's hard to believe anything they say.  Samuelson says that Beijing retreated from its only revaluation "when the global economy crashed and has only recently permitted the currency to rise."  He says that, in practice, "however, the renminbi has barely budged." Bottom line: it's time for Congress to take action. Read more.