USA Today
WASHINGTON (AP) - Supporters of a measure to normalize trade relations with China closed in today on the votes needed for victory as both sides dueled for a dwindling pool of undecided House members.
Republicans early today nailed down at least 150 votes for the pact, the goal they had set for themselves, said Republican congressional leadership sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
That put the pressure on Democrats to come up with at least 68 votes to produce the needed 218-vote majority. Democratic sponsors have said they expect to produce 70 to 80 votes.
The final vote was expected in the House today. The Clinton administration and business lobbyists worked behind the scenes to line up the votes needed for passage.
"I think we're going to make this PNTR vote for China," a confident President Clinton told reporters late Tuesday night about permanent normal trade relations, one of his top legislative priorities for his final year.
Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., who is chairman of the House Rules Committee, said negotiators had cleared away the last hurdles to a floor vote today with the inclusion of language sought by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., to specifically list human rights protections that a watchdog commission would examine each year.
"We are going to win tomorrow. I am convinced we are on track for victory," Dreier said.
The bill would extend permanent normal trade relations to China, guaranteeing China the same low-tariff access to U.S. markets that nearly every other country in the world has.
For the past 20 years, China has received this benefit, but only after an annual congressional vote, which gave opponents a platform to attack China's record on a host of issues from human rights to religious freedom.
In return for U.S. support for China's bid to join the World Trade Organization, China has offered to lower high trade barriers that American manufacturers and farmers have complained are costing them billions of dollars in lost sales annually.
American corporations have spent millions of dollars lobbying on behalf of the China trade bill but they faced determined opposition from organized labor, which believes normalizing trade relations will result in the movement of more high-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs to China.
In a last-ditch effort to sidetrack the legislation, opponents were considering offering an amendment to tie the trade benefits to Taiwan's security as a way to gain conservative GOP votes.
But supporters claimed momentum was on their side following the pickup of a number of fence-sitters Tuesday as the Clinton administration conducted its own version of "Lets Make a Deal" to offer inducements to wavering lawmakers.
Among those announcing in favor of the proposal Tuesday was Rep. Martin Frost, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, and four other members of the Texas delegation.
Frost said he would vote yes after the administration provided assurances of financial support being sought by Northrop Grumman to keep its defense plant in Grand Prairie, Texas.
In an effort to gain support from black and Hispanic Democrats representing poor districts, the administration reached an agreement with Republicans on a package of tax breaks aimed at helping distressed rural and urban areas. Clinton and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., announced the deal at the White House on Tuesday.
Hoping to pick up votes of lawmakers from tobacco states, the administration also announced that China had agreed to drop an 11-year ban on the importation of U.S. tobacco.
At the start of House debate, supporters argued that the world's biggest economy had to remain engaged with the fast-growing Chinese market.
"Over 1 billion people will not be ignored in the international marketplace," said the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas.
But opponents argued that granting China normal trade relations with the United States would only worsen America's trade deficit with that country, which hit a record $68 billion last year.
"Let us have the guts to stand up to the big money interests who are more concerned about the bottom line than the best interests of the American people," said Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.
The House Rules Committee incorporated into the China proposals two amendments agreed to earlier by sponsors. One would set up a watchdog commission to monitor human rights in China. The other would help protect U.S. industries against surges in imports from China.
Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved.:
