Via Katzblog and Kate Lucadamo, Mayor Bloomberg made two interesting comments while doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal from Hong Kong, where he's traveling in his new role as head of C40 Cities, one of which waded heavily into trade policy with China, a contentious topic.

The other may not thrill the new members of congress elected on Tuesday (or their longer-serving colleagues).

Regarding trade with China, the mayor said, "“I think in America, we’ve got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves,” he said.

“Let me get this straight: There’s a country on the other side of the world that is taking their taxpayers’ dollars, and trying to sell subsidized things so we can buy them cheaper, and have better products, and we’re going to criticize that?”



Earlier, in an interview, the mayor was deeply, undiplomatically critical of provincialism and populism in U.S. Congress.



“If you look at the U.S., you look at who we’re electing to Congress, to the Senate—they can’t read,” he said. “I’ll bet you a bunch of these people don’t have passports. We’re about to start a trade war with China if we’re not careful here,” he warned, “only because nobody knows where China is. Nobody knows what China is.”



It's the latest example of Bloomberg saying something that isn't necessarily politically expedient, but which his supporters find as a sign of strength for that very reason.