In a scathing criticism of his Republican presidential rival, US President Barack Obama today said Mitt Romney cannot take strong action against the illegal trade practices of China because of his past record of outsourcing jobs to that country.

"He (Romney) has been running around....Claiming he's going to roll up his sleeves and he's going to take the fight to China. Here is the thing. His experience has been, owning companies that were called pioneers in the business of outsourcing jobs to countries like China," Obama said in a speech addressing a campaign meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"He made money investing in companies that uprooted from here and went to China....Now, you can't stand up to China when all you've done is sent them our jobs. You can talk a good game, but I like to walk the walk, not just talk the talk," Obama said today even as his Administration dragged China to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for its alleged subsidies given to the Chinese auto industry.

"My experience has been waking up every single day and doing everything I can to make sure American workers get a fair shot in the global economy. When other countries don't play by the rules, we've done something about it," Obama said.

"We brought more trade cases against China in one term than the previous administration did in two. And every case we've brought that's been decided, we won," Obama added.

"When Governor Romney said that stopping unfair surges in Chinese tires would be bad for America, bad for our workers, you know, we ignored his advice, and we got over a thousand Americans back to work creating tires right here in the United States of America," he said.

Earlier this year, Obama said, he set up a new task force to aggressively go after unfair trade practices that harm US workers.