GOP Candidates Blame China, Obama For Stock Market Plunge

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As U.S. stocks hit an 18-month low on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by nearly 600 points, several GOP hopefuls seeking the Presidential nomination in 2016 weighed in on possible reasons for the plunge.

The Dow dropped over 1,000 points within the first few minutes of trading, reminding many of the 1987 U.S. stock market crash referred to as “Black Monday.” In response, 13.9 billion shares changed hands on Monday, marking the largest volume since 2011.

[RELATED: Dow Plunges 1,000 Points]

The Wall Street Journal noted that some traders blamed the major drop on “big investors scrambling for ways to protect themselves against losses outside the U.S.,” and that the decline “triggered so-called stop-loss orders, which are designed to protect investors by instigating a sale once a stock falls to a certain level.”

Some GOP candidates including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker blamed the plunge on China. Walker released a statement blaming China’s “slowing economy,” and saying that he thinks President Obama should cancel his upcoming state visit, because Americans “need see some backbone from President Obama on U.S.-China relations.”

“Americans are struggling to cope with the fall in today’s markets driven in part by China’s slowing economy and the fact that they actively manipulate their economy,” Walker said. “Rather than honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping with an official state visit next month, President Obama should focus on holding China accountable over its increasing attempts to undermine U.S. interests.”

Former business executive Carly Fiorina told Fox Business that she partially blames the plunge on U.S. relations with China, and she thinks now is the time for the U.S. to “put pressure on China.”

“It’s also true that the Chinese government cut this deal with the Chinese people which is, ‘We’re going to keep this economy growing fast enough to lift millions out of poverty and in return, you’re going to accept censorship, repression and terrible safety standards and pollution,” Fiorina said.

Fiorina also noted that “I don’t think there was any excuse frankly for QE2 or QE3. QE1 you can see. Obviously we’re in the middle of a crisis, but my own view is that we have politicized the Fed by giving it a duel mandate, full employment as well as inflation.”

Billionaire mogul Donald Trump told Bill O’Reilly that he blames the plunge in stocks on the U.S. tying itself “so closely to Asia and in particular to China that this is going to be trouble for our country.”

“Not only now have they taken our jobs, they’ve taken our base, they’ve taken our manufacturing, but now they are pulling us down with them and I said we can’t do this, we can’t allow this to happen,” Trump said. “We have to do a big uncoupling pretty soon before it’s too late.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said that he blames Obama for the drop, calling it a result of a “history of failed policies by this president.”

“What’s happened is, because this president has run up more debt than any president in American history, that debt has been given to us in large measure by the Chinese,” Christie said. “And so now, as the Chinese markets tend to have a correction, which they’re doing right now, it’s going to have an even greater effect because this president doesn’t know how to say no to spending, doesn’t know how to say no to a bigger and more intrusive government.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said that he also blames Obama for the drop, and said that it was a result off “Washington-Wall Street elites” being empowered “at the expense of American workers on Main Street.”

“Sadly, the chickens are now coming home to roost for the Obama administration and its failed economic policies,” Huckabee said. “It’s time to build America’s economy, not China’s or Mexico’s, and quit importing cheap labor & exporting jobs overseas.”

The New York Times reported that the international drop in stocks prices, which began in China, left many investors wondering “how much government officials can and will do to insulate the global economy from the turmoil.”

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