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Thursday December 27 10:43 PM ET Bush
Grants Trade Status to China
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush (news
- web
sites) granted China permanent normal trade status Thursday, ending a
quarter-century policy of using access to U.S. markets as an annual enticement
to the communist giant to expand political and economic freedoms. The
president's decision made a final act to yearly battles in Congress since 1980
that at times divided the Democratic Party during the Clinton years. It was set
up by China's admission last month to the World Trade Organization (news
- web
sites). Bush called the trade
proclamation the ``final step in normalizing U.S.-China trade relations'' and
said it wouldup the vast Chinese markets to billions of dollars in
American goods. The new trade status takes
effect Jan. 1, Bush said in the announcement released in Crawford, Texas, where
he is vacationing. ``This is the final step in normalizing U.S.-China trade
relations and welcoming China into a global, rules-based trading system,'' he
said. Technically, Bush's proclamation
formally removed China from having to adhere to the 1974 Jackson-Vanik
Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. The amendment, initially aimed at the
former Soviet Union's restrictions against Jewish emigration, withholds normal
trade relations with communist states that restrict emigration. Since 1980, China has enjoyed
temporary normal trade relations with the United States under annual presidential
waivers of the law. But each waiver has triggered debates in Congress over
China's record on human rights and weapons proliferation abuses. The last one occurred in July, when the House
voted 259-169 to approve Bush's waiver this year, the last that will be
necessary. The annual congressional battle pitted American business and its
Republican allies against big labor and its Democratic supporters. Former
President Clinton (news
- web
sites), at odds with many in his own party, started the process of moving
China toward permanent trade status before he left office. Congress last year granted the
permanent status to China contingent upon its entry into the WTO. Its
application was accepted formally at the WTO's annual meeting last month in the
United Arab Emirates. The annual struggle also
inflamed tensions with China each year and prompted worries in that country
every time it arose. China and the
United States reached an agreement, as part of China's WTO entry, that will
lower China's tariffs on U.S. goods andup its service sector to American
companies. China's tariffs on U.S.-made goods are to fall from an overall
average of 25 percent to 9 percent by 2005. Duties on America's primary farm
products are to drop from 31 percent to 14 percent. China has an $80 billion trade surplus with the United States. Bush has long supported trade
with Beijing, even during the standoff over a U.S. spy plane that collided with
a Chinese jet fighter and made an emergency landing on Chinese territory early
this year. In asking Congress for a
temporary extension in June, he argued normalized relations would benefit the
American economy and be critical to promoting an ``economically
politically stable and secure China.'' Bush
argued that U.S.-China trade benefits both American farmers, who last year
exported to China and Hong Kong goods worth more than $3 billion, and American
business, which last year increased overall exports to China by 24 percent. |