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U.S. should play 'hardball' on Cnooc deal: Schumer

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Charles Schumer, the U.S. Democratic senator, plans to tell Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that Washington should block Chinese energy firm Cnooc Ltd.'s bid to acquire Canada's Nexen Inc., until Beijing provides fair access to U.S. firms investing in the country, according to reports. In a letter to be sent to Geithner Friday -- and a copy of which was made available to media organizations including The Wall Street Journal and Reuters -- Schumer wrote that an approval of the "Cnooc-Nexen transaction should be a test of these reciprocal commitments." In a separate interview with the Journal, he said: "It's about time we played a little hardball." Nexen , which recently received a $15.1 billion cash offer from Cnooc , owns a U.S. subsidiary that has offshore oil drilling assets in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Reuters.