Clinton was the man who granted Most Favored Nation status to China and opened the trade gates. But George Bush has strongly favored trade with China too.
The unions oppose free trade with China, because it costs us a lot of jobs. But evidently big business paid clinton more than the unions did, because they saw an opportunity for big profits.
The same with Bush. A lot of big donors like the idea. Walmart is usually the one most often mentioned, but virtually everyone buys from China across the board because they can make more money that way.
The FDA sometimes plays politics, too. While clinton was president they basically gave Tyson a free pass and never inspected his plants. With China, they presumably don’t want the whole thing to blow up in their faces, but also they don’t want to bite the hands that feed them. So they caught some bad shipments, but probably are not eager to shut trade with China down, even though it is clearly dangerous.
When something like this pops up, they need to find a scapegoat, and no doubt ChemNutra and that Chinese company will be the fall guys. Then they will wait for the scandal to die down and go back to business as usual, unless someone really holds their feet to the fire.
So, I guess you can say that both parties have supported trade with China. The Dems are split because the unions are not too happy about it; and the Republicans are split because conservatives don’t trust the Chinese Communists. But the money people on both sides favor it.
see my post #25. I think I understand how all this works, but it still feels “wrong” to me.