"....From the jus' so's ya know Department....":
Key U.S. House panel favors China trade deal-poll
WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - A majority of lawmakers in Congress' powerful Ways and Means Committee said they would support President Bill Clinton's landmark trade agreement with China, according to a Reuters poll of members.
Passage by the committee, which is responsible for trade and tax legislation, may give Clinton's market-opening pact momentum when the fight shifts to the full House of Representatives, where the outcome is uncertain because of stiff opposition from Democrats and their labour union allies.
House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt has told Clinton he has serious problems with the trade agreement, but was trying to work out a compromise on legislation that would increase enforcement of the pact and give lawmakers the authority to monitor China's human rights record.
"I don't know if it can be done," he said. Any compromise legislation must have "teeth," to put pressure on China to live up to its obligations and to protect workers, Gephardt said, adding this should include the threat of trade sanctions if China broke the rules.
According to the poll, conducted over the last month, 20 lawmakers on the 39-member House Ways and Means Committee said they would vote in favour of legislation granting China permanent trading privileges in the U.S. market.
That's just enough to ensure passage, and to move the legislation to the 435-member House for a vote, expected in May or June.
The pact is overwhelmingly favoured in the Senate Finance Committee and is expected to clear the 100-member Senate, according to a Reuters poll released earlier this month.
The trade agreement, finalised in November 1999, paves the way for China's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), though Beijing must still wrap up negotiations with the European Union and other WTO member-nations before joining the Geneva-based body, which sets global trading rules.
The pact calls on Beijing to open a wide range of markets, from agriculture to telecommunications.
In exchange for China opening its markets, the White House says Congress must grant Beijing permanent normal trade relations (NTR) -- a status it now gets only after an annual congressional review.
Permanent NTR legislation, introduced by Clinton last week, would guarantee Chinese goods the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets as products from nearly every other nations.
The White House has asked Congress to approve the legislation by June, fearing further delay would bog it down in election politics. The U.S. general election is in November.
LIKELY SUPPORT
On top of the 20 Ways and Means Committee members who said they would support permanent NTR, three panel members said they were likely to support the legislation.
Only two lawmakers said they were opposed -- Democratic Reps. John Lewis and Fortney Stark, citing concerns about Chinese record on human rights and labour standards.
Twelve members of the committee said they were undecided, though many of them were expected to support permanent NTR if related legislation were approved to increase congressional oversight of the pact.
Two Ways and Means Committee members would not participate in the poll.
A Reuters poll of the full House was, so far, inconclusive because of the large number of lawmakers who said they were undecided. But according to vote counts conducted by opponents of the pact, the trade initiative is in peril.
Representative David Bonior, a member of the Democratic leadership, estimated that at least 128 of the House's 211 Democrats will vote against permanent NTR for China.
Another count has as few as 60 House Democrats committed to supporting permanent NTR, far short of the 80 to 100 Democratic votes that Republican leaders say they need to ensure passage.
Many lawmakers in the House, including much of Clinton's Democratic Party, are reluctant to grant China permanent NTR status because of concerns about human rights and opposition from U.S. labour unions, who say the trade pact will destroy American jobs.
But in recent weeks Gephardt privately has assured business executives that he will not rally Democrats against the trade pact. "I don't twist arms," he told reporters on Thursday.
But if negotiations with the White House on a compromise were to break down, Gephardt added: "Everyone will know ... well in advance of this vote where I'm going to vote and what I'm going to do."
The Minority Leader said his proposal would include provisions to ensure that "treaties are actually followed by (China) chapter and verse," as well as a mechanism for Congress to monitor Beijing's human rights record going forward, and a "code of conduct" for U.S. firms that do business in China. |
