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U.S. Trade Representative, Governor Urge Approval of PNTR with China
U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci Monday urged Congress to approve permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with China.
Barshefsky, speaking at the foreign press center, said the vote that Congress will take next week is not about whether China will enter the World Trade Organization or continue to export to the U.S.
The only issue before the Congress is whether the United States will accept the benefit of China's accession and the country's market opening, she said.
She said that if the U.S. does not provide PNTR status to China, the U.S. will have no legal right in the WTO to the benefits of the trade agreement signed between the U.S. and China in November last year.
"That would be, obviously, an economically irrational outcome," she said. "It would be damaging in the extreme."
Barshefsky said granting PNTR status to China will not only promote economic reforms in China but also be in the strategic and security interests of the U.S.
She said the U.S. is obliged to look for areas of common ground though the two countries have differences in human rights and other issues.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci cautioned the U.S. Congress against embracing isolationism and urged the expansion of global free trade through adoption of PNTR with China. "I strongly believe that if Congress seizes this opportunity, America stands to gain enormous benefits from open markets that have enormous potential," Cellucci said in an address to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Cellucci led a 12-day trade mission to China in March with 20 Massachusetts companies to explore business opportunities for the Bay State firms dealing mostly in high-tech, telecommunications and engineering services.
Also Monday, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and the Wine Institute of the country formed the Agriculture-High Technology Alliance to push bipartisan passage by Congress of legislation that would grant PNTR status to China.
Representing nine broad-based industry associations, co-chairs George Scalise, president of the SIA in San Jose, and John De Luca, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Wine Institute, announced the formation of the Alliance at a press conference.
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