U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge will focus on trade matters and oversight issues in his first term on the influential Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives.

Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, is the first North Carolinian named to the committee since 1953. The committee is the source of all tax bills and has jurisdiction over Medicare and Social Security, Barb Barrett reports.

Etheridge was named today to the subcommittees on Trade and Oversight.

The oversight panel will give Etheridge a position to help shape the economic recovery plan being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama. Etheridge this week wrote Obama asking him to including Etheridge's school construction proposal in the plan.

On the trade subcommittee, Etheridge said he wants to not only enforce current agreements but make sure new agreements support North Carolina's workers and products.

HIGH POINT — Hillary Clinton told supporters in this furniture hub Monday that as president she would be aggressive in promoting American trade interests.

Clinton, at her second stop of the day in North Carolina before her match-up Tuesday with Barack Obama in the state's primary, called for renegotiating trade agreements, David Ingram reports.

She singled out China, accusing the country of manipulating its currency, unfairly subsidizing its domestic companies and overlooking counterfeiting.

"I will get tough on China because what they are doing is not right," Clinton said.

Many of the thousands of N.C. furniture jobs lost in the last decade have gone to China and other Asian countries, where labor costs are also lower.

More after the jump.

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