Three Former U.S. Presidents Endorse PNTR with China

Three former U.S. presidents Monday urged Congress to grant permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status to China.

"In economic terms, the case is clear," former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush wrote in a letter, which was released by the White House.

"The agreement to bring China into the WTO is the product of more than 13 years of tough negotiations conducted by four administrations, Democratic and Republican," Ford, Carter and Bushsaid.

"We urge Congress to embrace this agreement and to bring its benefits home by voting for PNTR," they said.

The former presidents warned that failure to grant China permanent normal trade relations status would "squander" the best opportunity the United States has had in a generation to address long-standing concerns about China's trading practices.

They also said it would improve U.S.-China relations, make positive change within China more likely by opening doors to the information revolution and speeding up reforms.

"A vote against PNTR will make it far more difficult to attain these critical goals," the presidents said. "It would encourage deeper tensions between Beijing and Taiwan and diminish our ability to work for Asian stability."

Their letter is expected to give a boost to Clinton administration's effort to lobby for passage of PNTR bill ahead of a Congress vote in the week of May 22.

"The endorsement of three former presidents should have a significant impact on members who are trying to make up their mind," White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said.

Presidents Ford and Carter will visit the White House Tuesday with former secretaries of state and national security advisers to rally support for the legislation.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a letter to House Banking and Financial Services Chairman James Leach, a Republican from Iowa, also endorsed the passage of the legislation, saying that it was "in the interests of the United States."

"Our markets are already generally open to China and that will not be altered (by the China trade bill)," Greenspan wrote.

He said passage of the bill to normalize trade relations with China "will facilitate a further opening of China's markets to U.S. producers."



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