Obama had best solution to trade problems at Vegas debate.

But going back to the issue of China -- you know what Japan does with the Chinese when it comes to, for example, food importation? They send their own inspectors over to China and they set up their own safety system and they say, "If you don't abide by our rules, you can't send food into Japan."

Now, the question is, why doesn't the United States impose these same rules and regulations as Japan has? (Cheers, applause.) This is the biggest market -- this is the biggest market in the world. China has to sell here.

But this goes back to how we did most favored nation trading status with China. The problem was we had one (level ?) when we allowed them in. We should have said, "We will review this every single year, so if you are not behaving properly, if you are not safeguarding our consumers and we find that you are not looking out for American workers or the administration is not, we won't have that subject to review." That was the failure on that China bill.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14820/democratic_debate_transcript_las_vegas_nevada.html?breadcrumb=%2Fissue%2F480%2Fus_election_2008

Obama so often comes with solutions that are simple and seem obvious once you think about it, yet no other candidate brings up.

it's a scandal that we act as if we have no leverage at all. Then again, Obama's Japan-style approach would require an actual belief in the power of government to protect its citizens...