Posted on 02/10/2006 7:29:45 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
US senators launch bill to repeal China's trading status
2 hours, 7 minutes ago
Two US senators have proposed legislation that would repeal permanent normal trade relations status for China, citing Beijing's alleged unfair trade practices and a rocketing US trade deficit.
The US Congress granted China the PNTR status in 2000, which paved the way for the most populous nation to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO) and for US businesses to deal more seamlessly with Beijing.
But senators Byron Dorgan and Lindsey Graham, co-authors of the bipartisan measure, said the status should be rescinded in retaliation for China's unfair trade practices which they said were responsible for the huge US trade deficit, which could surpass 200 billion dollars in 2005.
They cited practices including piracy, currency manipulation, violation of its own labor laws, and barriers to prevent US products from entering the Chinese market.
"There's nothing normal or fair about any of these methods," Dorgan, the Democratic senator from North Dakota, told a joint news conference with Graham, a South Carolina legislator from President George W. Bush's Republican Party.
"I think we have reached the tipping point on the issue of China. It cheats in a way that hurts this country," he said.
Graham acknowledged the legislative action was "drastic in the sense of politics" but added: "I think it's necessary in the sense of business."
The PNTR status, he said, should only be granted to China on an annual basis subject to progress on reforms scrutinized by Congress.
The lawmakers did not say when they plan to debate or push for a vote on the bill but the move comes as US President George W. Bush prepares to welcome his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in April.
Cautioning the lawmakers, US Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record) said any decision to withdraw the PNTR from China could boomerang.
"To me it would do nothing to help with the trade deficit, in fact the reverse, relative to China," Portman told reporters after talks with the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Graham is behind another bipartisan measure that would force China to revalue its currency or face higher tariffs on Chinese imports.
The legislation, to impose a 27.5 percent tariff across the board on Chinese imports, has good support in Congress, lawmakers say.
"There is nothing normal about the way China manages its currency. They manipulate their currency to get an economic advantage over the world, not just the United States, and the world is telling China, 'end your manipulation practices and allow your currency to go to its market value,'" Graham said.
After months of intense US pressure, China freed the yuan from an 11-year-old peg to the US dollar in July last year, revaluing it by 2.1 percent and putting it in a trade-weighted basket of currencies. The yuan was also allowed to move 0.3 percent either way on any given day.
But legislators and businesses in the United States say the yuan remains undervalued and continues to sink the country's trade balance deeper into the red.
Portman pointed out that China was a vital market for the United States.
It is the biggest US export market in terms of growth, averaging around 15 to 20 percent over the last two years, among large economies, he said.
"It's been a great export market for us, and part of that is because they're now in the WTO, we're able to not only seek lower tariffs ... (and) we should not lose sight of the fact that in the export side it's created a lot of jobs in the US," he explained.
Portman admitted that the United States "could do better in China if we can get China to live by the rules."
But imports and export alone do not determine the trade deficit, he said, citing other factors like the macroeconomic situation.
He referred to the increasingly large savings in China compared to those in the United States and the "extremely high" US consumption rate relative to China.
The US deficit is expected to pass the key 200-billion-dollar mark when 2005 figures are released Friday, roughly 40 billion dollars more than the previous year, Dorgan and Graham said Thursday.
Ping!
They have my whole hearted support in this.
I guess any senator opposing have chance of recieving money from China through Chinese lobbyists. We should watch close.
Is this initiative exactly new? I don't believe so, hence, I am not excited.
This debate has raged before, and in the end, Congress has always maintained the trading status quo for Red China.
Sure, job and industrial tech. exports.
Trade means 'we buy from you' and 'you buy from us'. Right now the Clinton/Bush favorite trading partner deal with China is just a give-away of our country to benefit financiers [also known as PAC-men].
There is no such thing as a Chinese lobbyist. More accurately, there are former American government officials lobbying for China. That hurts us the most. Former officials who are intimate with the US trade bureaucracy willing to use their expertise to help the Chinese for a six digit consulting fee. In Bejing, there are no retired Chinese trade officials working as lobbyists for the US. The more I think about it, nor are there former Japanese, Korean, Singaporan, and etc officials hired by US companies lobbying for American trade interests against their own homelands. History has shown that the leading cause of death of great civilizations is short term thinking of its elites that lead to strategic suicide.
It's too bad that blowhards with no understanding of economics get to participate in economic decision-making for our country.
Sounds like the same pre-NAFTA scam when the govt. used some large percentage to show how much we exported to Mexico. A couple of anti-NAFTA folks did a little digging and found that the value of our factories' machinery that was shipped down there was included.
Buy American!
Yep I hope it passes. We can live without the garbage they produce.
You've made an interesting point.
Me too! This is the best news I have heard in a long time.
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