Obama raps China, Romney in debut campaign bus tour

President Barack Obama gets a high-five as he greets children outside the Kozy Corner diner in Oak Harbour, Ohio, Thursday, July 5, 2012. Obama is on a two-day bus trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania. AP PHOTO/SUSAN WALSH

MAUMEE, Ohio—President Barack Obama Thursday heralded his first re-election campaign bus tour with a new trade blast at China and fresh accusations his White House foe Mitt Romney helped send US jobs abroad.

Obama set off through bellwether Ohio on his sleek, black, armored bus, touting his rescue of the US auto industry and contrasting his vision for the struggling middle-class with that of his rich Republican rival.

Before rolling into the Toledo area, home to General Motors and Daimler-Chrysler plants, Obama announced a new rebuke of China, a bogeyman in heartland America, over duties on $3 billion in US auto exports.

“Just this morning, my administration took a new action to hold China accountable for unfair trade practices that harm American auto makers,” Obama told a sun-baked crowd seated before a barn draped in an American flag.

Beijing is reviled in the rust belt over trade and for luring American jobs for its low-wage workers, a theme which conveniently meshes with Obama’s critique of Romney’s conduct as a venture capitalist.

The president highlighted a recent Washington Post report that suggested Romney’s former firm Bain Capital was a trailblazer in helping American firms send jobs offshore, to economies like China.

“Governor Romney’s experience has been in owning companies that were called pioneers of outsourcing,” Obama said.

“My experience has been in saving the American auto industry.”

Ohio is a perennial battleground in presidential elections – no Republican has ever won the White House without capturing it – and Romney’s road to power looks unlikely if he does not win it on November 6.

Obama won Ohio in 2008, and his trip Thursday and Friday, and onward travel to Pennsylvania, will take him to territory in which he outpaced Republican nominee John McCain four years ago.

Romney is targeting the area heavily this year, peddling a message that the stuttering economy proves that Obama’s administration has failed and that Obama has no idea how to create jobs.

A Quinnipiac University poll of Ohio voters last week had Obama leading Romney 47 to 38 percent in a possible sign that searing attacks on the Republican’s business record was working.

The auto tariffs case showed the advantages of incumbency for Obama, who can time such newsworthy announcements for moments of maximum political impact.

White House spokesman Jay Carney insisted the move was dictated by the pace of government trade policy and not to make a splash for Obama.

When Obama imposed tariffs on Chinese tires in 2009, Romney criticized the move as tantamount to protectionism.

But he has since become a hawk on China, vowing to brand Beijing a currency manipulator.

China is frequently a target in US elections for candidates of both parties seeking to score populist points, but presidents often adopt a more moderate course in office, consistent with decades of US foreign policy.

Obama’s team Thursday also took a new swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee over his personal tax arrangements, following several in-depth looks into his offshore holdings and investments.

Campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said an Associated Press investigation which questioned whether Romney established a corporation in Bermuda as a tax loophole, raised “serious questions.”

The Obama campaign lambasts Romney over his Swiss bank account and investments in foreign tax havens, and says his reluctance to release all his tax records suggests he has something to hide.

Romney accuses Obama of trying to divert attention from an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent and a stuttering economic recovery.

The Republican’s aides attempted to put the focus back on Obama’s economic record on Thursday, after the president enjoyed a good few weeks, including a Supreme Court ruling declaring his landmark health reform law constitutional.

“We should all bet on the country but we shouldn’t double down on Barack Obama. He’s had his chance. It’s not working. And we need to get it moving in a different direction,” Romney backer Tim Pawlenty told an Ohio radio station.

Romney may get new ammunition on Friday if monthly Labor Department data does not show a substantial rise from May’s measly job creation figures of 69,000.

Political bus tours are a fabled ritual of US campaigns, as candidates pose as men of the people and garner bumper local news coverage.

The value of such trips was evident when Obama scored the above-the-fold territory on the front page of the local Toledo Blade newspaper, featuring stories about the China action and the venue of his first event.

His opponent tried to butt in though, as a light plane buzzed overhead, trailing a banner reading “Romney 2012.”