Donald Trump may be referring to the Texas senator’s vote last year against an amendment to TPP fast-track legislation. | Getty Trump: Cruz supported Chinese currency manipulation

HARTFORD, Conn. — Donald Trump charged Ted Cruz with bowing to foreign interests and supporting the Chinese government's manipulation of its currency at a rally here on Friday night

Trump lodged the accusation during remarks on the decline of Connecticut's manufacturing sector, which he blamed on the entrance of China into the World Trade Organization and the country’s devaluing of its currency. “Cruz wants it to go on because somebody probably representing interests in China says, ‘This is what we want,’” Trump said.


Trump may be referring to the Texas senator’s vote last year against an amendment to TPP fast-track legislation proposed by Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow that would have made it “a principal negotiating objective of the United States to address currency manipulation in trade agreements.”

It is not clear which representatives of Chinese interests Trump believes pressured Cruz, and a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for more information late Friday. Representatives of the Cruz campaign also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In October, the U.S. Treasury Department said in its semi-annual report on currencies that the yuan was “below its appropriate medium-term valuation” – a softening from previous reports calling the Chinese currency “significantly undervalued.” That shift in tone came several months after Beijing allowed the yuan to adjust more easily to fluctuations in other currencies, a policy change that was hailed by the International Monetary Fund but caused a quick plunge in the yuan’s value against the dollar.

During his remarks, Trump continued his recent habit of citing gloomy statistics about the local economy. He said the number of food-stamp recipients in Hartford County had jumped 150 percent since 2000 while the state’s manufacturing jobs were down by a third in the same time period.

He attributed much of the decline in manufacturing to China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001. “It came in and entered world trade, and you know what? No good,” Trump said.

Noting that the state’s labor force had shrunk by 10,000 since 2011, Trump said, “We’re heading in the wrong direction.”

Trump made the charge during an unusually brief 30-minute speech to more than a thousand supporters at the Connecticut Convention Center. Many attendees were still waiting in line for security screenings when Trump cut off his remarks by repeatedly thanking the crowd until music played to signal the end of the rally. Attendees leaving the rally collided with scores of protesters who had gathered outside at the building’s entrance.

Connecticut Republicans go to the polls to vote for a presidential nominee on April 26.