Hillary Email On China: ‘I Just Hope They Keep Buying Our Debt!’

TEL AVIV – “Say what??? I just hope they keep buying our debt!”

That was Hillary Clinton’s email response to an article forwarded to her private blackberry address by a top aide quoting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner accusing China of “manipulating” its own currency.

The correspondence was contained in a new batch of Clinton emails released last week in response to a Judicial Watch lawsuit.  The emails were reviewed in full by Breitbart Jerusalem.

On January 22, 2009, aide Jake Sullivan sent Clinton a New York Times article published that day entitled, “Geithner says China is ‘manipulating’ its currency.”

Clinton’s full reply reads: “Say what??? I just hope they keep buying our debt! Thanks for all your help  getting us off to a good start.”

One month later, on February 22, 2009, Clinton essentially pleaded with China to continue buying U.S. Treasury bonds amid fears of economic turmoil.

“It’s a safe investment. The United States has a well-deserved financial reputation,” Clinton stated in an interview with a Chinese television station during a diplomatic tour of Asia.

“We are truly going to rise and fall together. Our economies are so intertwined, the Chinese know that to start exporting again to their biggest market the United States has to take some very drastic measures with this stimulus package, which means we have to incur more debt,” she said.

The Telegraph reported at the time:

Chinese media reports say Mrs. Clinton has offered emphatic assurances to premier Wen Jiabao and President Ju Jintao that the Obama administration intends to restore the health of US public accounts and safeguard the interests of bondholders once the economy has begun to recover.

Asian investors have expressed concern over the flood of debt in the United States, fearing that it could tempt Washington to engineer a stealth default by allowing inflation to creep up. The Treasury says it needs to raise almost $500bn (£350bn) in debt in the first quarter alone. Estimates for 2009 reach as high as $2 trillion, a huge sum in a world starved of capital at a time almost all the major governments are launching fiscal rescue packages.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.