Watch: Rachel Maddow Smackdown of Romney for China Investment

One of Mitt Romney’s latest attacks blasts President Obama for not “standing up to China.” In a new TV ad, the narrator says: ”China is stealing American ideas and technology. His policies cost us two million jobs.” BUT, Rachel Maddow notes here – Mitt Romney’s tax returns reveal that HE invested in the mostly Chinese government-owned oil company Cnooc that tried to take over Unocal oil company in California. That 2005 bid failed after a federal review for national security purposes.  Cnooc has since done a project with Iran, apparently to spite the US.  Rachel notes that the Cnooc boss says the company is “a strategic weapon,” which, she extrapolates, means that China is essentially “weaponizing its oil industry.” The kicker: Romney’s tax returns show that 7 months after Cnooc’s deal with Iran was reported, the “W. Mitt Romney blind trust invested…in shares of Cnooc Limited, the state-owned Chinese oil company” – three times.  Romney finally divested in August 10, 2011, as he was running for president.  This isn’t clueless or “out of touch” – this is avarice.

Tagged as: Mitt Romney, Rachel Maddow, Romney-China