The Washington Post / By Matthew Vita / Washington Post Staff Writer
NORTH CANTON, Ohio, May 12 -- With an undecided House Democrat at his side, President Clinton took his drive to win congressional approval of granting permanent normal trade relations to China to the Midwest today and declared that upgrading China's trade status was even more important to U.S. national security than it was to the economy.
With less than two weeks to go before a hotly contested House vote on whether to permanently extend regular trade privileges to China, Clinton visited the Ohio district of Rep. Thomas C. Sawyer, one of about 30 undecided House Democrats who will largely determine the fate of the legislation.
Illustrating the White House belief that the House vote on permanent normal trade relations, or PNTR, will be close, the president devoted most of the day to campaigning for the trade bill. He also traveled to a farm in Minnesota to tout the benefits of China's promised market opening for American agriculture.
The White House is asking Congress to waive its annual review of China's trade status and instead grant Beijing permanent normal trade ties so American business and farmers can be guaranteed the benefits of the tariff reductions and other market-opening measures China accepted to gain entry to the World Trade Organization.
But a number of organized labor, environmental, human rights and other organizations are waging a spirited campaign to defeat the bill. Although Clinton administration officials reiterated today that they remain confident the bill will pass, they said they will be increasing their focus on the group of undecided Democrats in the days ahead.
"This is not a foregone conclusion," Clinton told a crowd of several hundred people who gathered at a soybean and corn grain farm in Shakopee, Minn., about 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Sawyer, who has a strong pro-labor voting record, is being pressured by the pro-PNTR business community and his anti-PNTR labor allies. Clinton and Sawyer met with a dozen local business and labor leaders at an Ohio Army National Guard headquarters outside Akron Canton Regional Airport, in the president's first trip outside Washington directed specifically at an undecided member of Congress.
In remarks at the start of the session, Clinton defended the PNTR bill as in the country's economic interest. But he once again stressed what he said would be the national security benefits of approving the measure, arguing that engaging China through trade will moderate Chinese behavior toward Taiwan and other nations as well as its human rights policies at home.
"It is a good deal economically. But I have to tell you, I think it's more important for our national security," Clinton said.
Before making up his mind, Sawyer is said to be seeking some assurances that the House Republican leadership will support a bipartisan proposal to establish a human rights commission to monitor China's rights behavior. PNTR supporters say the rights commission proposal, a draft of which emerged this week, could bring an additional 10 to 15 undecided Democrats into the "yes" camp.
Clinton has placed the PNTR vote at the center of his legislative agenda, and he declared again today that the issue "is the most important national security vote that Congress will cast this year."
In a reprise of the intensive effort he made in the final days before the House approved the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, Clinton will devote an increasing amount of time to lobbying wavering Democrats between now and the House vote, scheduled for the week of May 22, White House aides said.
He already is blocking out time on his schedule each day to telephone members and will hold additional meetings at the White House with key Democrats.
"I think it's tight, but I think generally it's going in our direction," Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said of the PNTR fight on Capitol Hill. "I think we will win this vote, but I think it's going to be a very close vote."
Glickman, who accompanied the president on his trip, said support for the trade bill among representatives from rural, agricultural districts was strong, though several were still undecided, including six members of the House Agriculture Committee. Rep. David Minge (D-Minn.), whose district Clinton visited today, has already come out in favor of the legislation.
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