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White House Presses for Senate Vote on China Bill
The Clinton administration on Thursday urged US Senate leaders to schedule a vote the week of June 12-16 on legislation granting permanent trade benefits to China, warning that foot-dragging could jeopardise passage.
"Our hope is that the Senate will act quickly, beginning the debate in earnest by the week of June 12th and, if possible, bringing the bill to a vote by the end of that week," US Trade Representatives Charlene Barshefsky told the US-China Business Council at a dinner ceremony.
"The more we delay, the more we place the achievements to date at risk," she said.
Sixty-three lawmakers in the 100-member Senate said in a Reuters poll they would vote in favour of legislation granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China.
That is enough to ensure passage of the bill, which would end the annual ritual of reviewing China's trade status and permanently guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to US markets as products from nearly every other nation.
China would, in turn, open a wide range of markets, from agriculture to telecommunications, to US businesses under the terms of a landmark trade agreement signed in November 1999 ushering Beijing into the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Senate opponents said they will propose amendments to the PNTR legislation, hoping to delay the vote, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi has signalled consideration of the bill could be pushed back into late July.
PNTR has already won US House of Representatives approval despite warnings by organised labour that closer trade ties could cost hundreds of thousands of American workers their jobs.
Unlike the House, where two-out-of-three Democrats voted against PNTR, the trade bill enjoys broad bipartisan support in the Senate. Twenty-seven Senate Democrats and 36 Republicans told Reuters they would vote in favour of PNTR.
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